Capsizing the World
by Jurassiccore
Summary: The Shadow Operatives are an organization devoted to the eradication of the enemies of mankind. It is for this purpose that they have banded together, seeking those who hold the same potential as themselves, in order to guide them and protect them. This is the tale of those young souls. The tale of their hopes. The tale of their struggles and triumphs. The tale of their suffering.
1. Prologue—Drowning Men Have Tighter Grips

Hey, I'm JurassicCore. You've probably never heard of me.

This is a story that I've been working on since... about forever ago, really. I've been stuck in rut in regards to this story for an embarrassingly long period of time.

Until now, that is.

This very first chapter, as posted on this website, used to be very, very long. It took me a while to figure out that most people didn't really appreciate that, but the problem's been fixed, more or less.

This is a continuation story, taking place after Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, and features many original characters. I understand that many people might be turned off by this, but hey, just bear with me for a bit and give it a fair shake, alright? It might come to grow on you.

The events that took place in Persona 3, Persona 4/Golden and Arena/Ultimax will remain the same for the most part, with a handful of minor changes to the story of those games. You'll see what they are, in time.

* * *

August 12th, 2012…

* * *

Tohru Adachi had never been a patient man.

He had always been cunning and shrewd, but his impulsiveness had always been his fatal flaw, seeing as he often made woefully foolish decisions in his haste, decisions which more often than not led to serious consequences. Whenever things started deviating from his intended plan, his go to solution had always been to charge headfirst and forcefully remove whatever may have been in his path. And as a result, the universe usually found a way to make things come full circle and bite him in the ass.

So, it sort of came as a wonder to him that he had not yet strangled the blonde man who was currently sitting across from him and regarding him with a pensive stare, as he had been doing for the past half hour.

"How curious," the blonde man finally remarked, putting an end to the long and awkward silence, "I would have thought that you'd be more pleased to hear this."

The former detective let out a derisive snort in response. "Oh trust me, I am. I just can't help but wonder why you and your folks went through all the trouble of bailing me out."

"Come now, is it really that hard to believe we helped to release you from the goodness of our hearts?" the other man asked with a mock hurt expression, yet still maintaining a polite smile on his lips.

"Oh please, get real. Nobody pulls this kind of shit just for kicks. You obviously want something from me. So tell me, Theo, what's the catch?"

"And here I was wondering how someone like you could have become a detective," the blonde, Theodore, chuckled, ignoring the vicious glare Adachi shot at him. "To be quite frank, there is no catch to this. We require your assistance, yes, but we didn't plan to use your freedom as a bargaining chip," he explained, "You could consider it as a show of good faith."

Adachi simply stared at him with a scowl that could have smashed concrete for almost a full minute. He opened his mouth slightly to say something, but stopped himself. Instead, he reached towards the liquor cabinet to his left and grabbed the bottle nearest to him. 'Jack Daniel's', he allowed himself a small grin. He'd always been fond of that particular brand.

Foregoing the need for a glass, he quickly unscrewed the cap and took a hearty chug before turning back to Theodore.

"See, that's what I don't get, It's barely been four months since you all pretty much told me to go fly a kite and I got thrown in this shit hole, but already that miserable old bastard sends you—the goddamn driver-"

"Actually," the blonde interrupted, with that irritatingly polite smile still plastered across his face." My position as the… chauffeur for the velvet room was only temporary. I'm currently acting as an assistant to master Igor."

For a brief moment, Adachi seriously contemplated taking his whiskey bottle and repeatedly beating his 'gracious host' over the head with it.

"Alright, so—the hunchback of Notredame sends you — his chauffeur turned home attendant, to tell me that I can cash in a 'get out of jail for free' card out of the blue, free of charge, with no repercussions. After all of you very clearly left me to fend for myself. And you just expect me to buy that bullshit? Stop jerking me around and tell me what the hell is going on already!"

"If you insist," Theodore's smile broadened, much to his guest's irritation, and wordlessly withdrew a thin folder from the inside of his blue jacket and slid it across the table, revealing its contents to Adachi.

Even in the dim blue lighting of the Velvet Room, it was easy to see how all the color drained from the former detective's face. His eyes rapidly darted back and forth across the paper, hoping against all hope that the letters would suddenly rearrange themselves to deliver different message.

But despite that, it stubbornly refused to change. The numerous faces that blankly looked back at him were still there. Forensic analyses, dates of birth and death, and the official information made available to the public were all there. Just like that, all his fears had been confirmed.

The Rules of this world had changed once more.

Instead of barraging him with obscenities or trying to jump across the table to pounce upon him, as Theodore had expected, Adachi... just began let out a series of choked sounds from his mouth.

For a moment, Theodore mistakenly thought that the man was suffocating, but soon realized that he was actually laughing at him. That choked chortle slowly grew into a full-blown cackle, accompanied by a mocking applause.

It took a few minutes before his laughter slowly wound down and he met Theodore's eye once more. "So that's it, then," he snickered, taking another sip straight from the bottle, much to the blonde's chagrin. "I just wanted to do my goddamn time quietly, you know. I was seriously ready to just stay here for the rest of forever, 'atone for my crimes,' that kinda stuff... Shit, I guess that ain't happening anymore, is it, Theo?"

"This is only the beginning, Master Adachi. Many more will be lost in the coming days, and you yourself wouldn't live for more than a week without our assistance. They'll find you, and you will meet the same end as the others." Theodore's sharp gaze met Adachi's, and the polite smile on his face vanished almost immediately.

He grit his teeth in frustration.

He'd just started getting comfortable in his cell, looking forward to a boring and predictable life sentence in prison, and now he, a convicted killer, of all people, was being recruited into a goddamn war.

That goddamn hunchback had really put him between a rock and a hard place with almost no effort.

If he accepted, he'd be forced back into the game, right under the decrepit little dwarf's thumb.

If he refused their terms, Theodore would just smile, again, give him his condolences, and Adachi's mutilated corpse would be found hanging on top of an outhouse a few days later, and so would end the life and times of him.

Hell of a Catch 22.

"So," Theodore said, placing an ornate pen on the table, right beside the folder, and replacing his smile, "are you prepared to assume the responsibility for your actions, Tohru Adachi?"

The ex-convict simply shook his head, and deciding that he might as well, gulped down the

remaining half of the whiskey. "Right, like I even have a damn choice," he scoffed as he sloppily signed his name on the contract, and effectively relinquished what little control he had over his own destiny.

Still, he couldn't help but feel a small mixture of relief and gratitude towards Igor and his servants for not just leaving him to die. Now, with this revived power he would actually have a chance to survive in the world.

* * *

 **Capsizing the World**

 **A Persona Fanfiction**

 **By JurassicCore**

* * *

Episode 1: The World, in Its True Form

0

The Fool


	2. The World in Its True Form: Part 1

Friday, April 4th, 2014…

It was already evening by the time he got to the city. The sun leisurely made its descent towards the west, and a cool Spring breeze blew gently through the streets.

Despite it being dusk, the city of Iwatodai was still bustling with activity. Young children playing in parks were being herded back home by their parents, teenagers complained about the unfairness of the impending return to school the following day, and weary salarymen hustled home after a long day at work.

It was only to be expected, seeing as the city was within the Kantō region, the most populous area of the country. Even so, the evening's mellow mood was rather uncommon considering that like most large cities, Iwatodai rarely saw a tranquil moment.

A lanky seventeen year old boy, wearing a cast over his left arm, wearily slumped on a park bench near one of the local shrines. He wearily ran his hand through his straight black hair, and let out a long, exhausted yawn.

He had just gone through what had been, without a doubt, the road trip from hell. To say that it had been troublesome would be a waste of a perfect opportunity to use the word "clusterfuck."

What was supposed to be have been a relatively short three hour-long trip from Osaka to Iwatodai had turned into a nine-hour long mess.

There had been delays, there had been excuses, there had been "heartfelt" apologies, and then there had been transfers. He wasn't really sure what the deal was, though he had heard something about a gas explosion at the Iwatodai train station, or something like that. The whole thing was kept pretty hush-hush from both the public and apparently most of the railway company's staff.

Then again, something like this wasn't really that far out of the ordinary, nowadays. It's sort of a bizarre thing to admit, but when mass disappearances and serial murders are cropping up on the news every other day, a random gas explosion doesn't really seem like that big of a deal in comparison.

When the train abruptly came to a stop at Hakone, all the passengers had been herded towards a highway bus which was supposed to take them the rest of the way to Iwatodai as quickly and efficiently as possible. So naturally, the bus got stuck in a traffic jam which ate up another whole seven hours of everybody's time.

So now here he was, fresh off the bus, and with no idea of what to do beyond just "waiting for pickup."

He yawned again, opened his duffle bag and reached down, pulling out a map of the city, which might have been useful if he had any idea of where he was even supposed to go. The fact that many of the streets in Iwatodai were named in a strange mixture of Japanese and French for some reason really didn't help his situation.

Maybe he was being a bit too critical, but considering how… hectic things were nowadays, it didn't really strike him as the greatest idea ever to let a teenager go halfway across the country on his own. Specially not one who couldn't even use his dominant arm.

"..."

It was then that the boy heard a buzzing noise coming from somewhere, like static from a radio, and felt goosebumps running up the back of his neck.

He blinked and turned around on the bench, and saw a blue butterfly lazily drifting across the park.

It came to a rest at the opposite side of the bench, where it just sat still for a moment, before it shone with a dim blue light, and the static sound assaulted his hearing again even louder than before. Like a bunch of tiny death metal bands had snuck into his ear drums and held an impromptu concert for the sole purpose of making him deaf.

 _"...?..."_

He reeled back and clutched his head when he felt a sudden headache and a wave of lightheadedness washing over him. He almost immediately jumped off the bench and backed away, never taking his eyes off the butterfly.

 _"...not…..yet…..?...your….…ready..."_ There it was again, that static, but this time it was a bit clearer, and he could make out some words through it.

"What's with this thing…?" Did he…accidentally drop acid on the way to the city, or something?

It shifted from its position on the bench, and turned to face him and spoke in more cryptic words.

 _"...Once, already…...I see it…..But if you don't….You...…."_

Now he had no doubt about it. That white noise was definitely coming from the butterfly, which just… sat there on the bench. Doing a whole bunch of nothing.

The boy warily stared at the butterfly, half expecting it to fly away, or start glowing some more, or burst into flames, or do something other than just stand there in all its not-at-all-menacing glory.

And then the loud honk of a car came from behind and startled him. The boy turned and saw an olive haired man stepping out of a sedan.

"Yo, Kei-kun," he called out to the boy with a wave. "Is that you, buddy? Man, I've been waiting forever for you!"

"Uh, yeah, hi," the boy, Kei, replied off-handedly, glancing back at the bench to find that the butterfly was nowhere to be seen.

He frowned at that. Not even twenty minutes in the city, and he was already having hallucinations of magic glow-in-the-dark butterflies, and who knows what else.

 _'Man,'_ he rubbed at his eyes. _'Am I really that tired from the trip?'_

Then he became self-conscious of the fact that staring at a bench like a crazy person was gonna make him look like... Well, a crazy person.

Raking his hand through his hair again, he turned back towards the man, relieved that this grand mess of a day was finally gonna end. "Ah, hi, Soma," he said sheepishly, "sorry I'm late. I kinda had to take the scenic route."

 _He watched as the two of them made short conversation after that, before getting into the man's car and driving off, and barely suppressed a curse at himself when he realized that he'd missed the butterfly._

 _With a thought, his Sense shifted to another location, traveled through streets and alleyways, giving him awareness of everything in a three-hundred-and-sixty degree radius around that point where he was focused._

 _His Sensing ability wasn't anything special. In fact, it was very mediocre in comparison to the others, whose Sense could, at minimum, encompass the entire city with ease, while he struggled to maintain a radius of just shy of twenty feet._

 _He'd been at it for nearly an hour, now. Scanning several blocks close to the site of the explosion, but he'd found nothing new so far, just more evidence of facts he already knew; the site of the explosion was the Iwatodai Train Station, which connected the city to the Tohoku Shinkansen. The explosion was aimed upwards, which completely blew away several floors, the roof, the basement itself, and one of the train platforms. And two of the operatives had been wounded in a battle there._

 _That was all the information he had to crack this puzzle._

 _No pressure, right?_

Back at Headquarters, inside an empty break room, the boy bit his lip and tried to focus harder.

If he wanted to find it, he'd need to give it his all. To reach farther into that dark and scary unknown. To dive 'Deeper'.

 _It was like being in a large crowd with people talking all around, while trying to concentrate on a single voice. He could barely recognize the general direction of where his target was- No, where it had once been, but nothing more than that. So far, the boy had managed to learn a whole bunch of nothing from this scanning, only things he'd already known._

 _An underground room, 'the boiler room,' some part of his mind provided, was filled with rubble and charred concrete. He could see that there were perfectly circular craters pockmarking the room—the walls, the floor, the machinery, even the ceiling itself—as if it were swiss cheese._

 _This anomaly was his target. He didn't have much going for him, there. Without a definite object to anchor himself to, the 'Memory' would be inconclusive at best, and misleading at worst. But regardless of his limitation, he had to prove his worth here. The others were depending on him, of all people, and he couldn't let them down._

 _He reached towards the pockmarked surface, and let the 'Memory' surge through his mind._

…ity...ey were being made fools of. Even when it seemed that their enemy had been cornered, it disappeared from one end of the room only to appear at the other.

So far, neither of them had been able to land a single hit on the damn thing. It just kept casually weaving in and out of their grasp, content to let them tire themselves out with each missed blow.

Yosuke knew the damn mo….nster was mocking them. Playing with them like a cat with mice.

He knew they were strong enough t…... If only he could stop it from mov…...th…. Ier…..lear…..

He sucked his teeth. Too disjointed, too little to go on. Hell, he'd barely managed a glance at the Shadow before being torn away from the memory.

He ignored the throbbing ache already forming in the back of his head—

 _—And returned to find another memory._

….m his peripheral vision, Yosuke managed to catch a glimpse of the monster disappearing into a shady corner of the room.

"Look out!" He shouted, reaching for his Evoker. "It's moving aga-!" He was drowned out by the noise. A low-pitched and distorted sound reverberated in his ears, as if the whole room got ripped apart and smashed back together in a split second.

And then, the creature was right there, next to him. He was barely able to register its presence when before it smashed into him with a clothesline that sent him skidding across the floor, all the way to the other end of the room, where he crashed head-first into a wall.

Kanji shouted something—which he couldn't really make out thanks to the potential concussion he just got—and attempted to run to help him.

Before he even managed to get past two steps, a dark green tendril snaked around his ankles, binding them together, and slammed him into the ceiling. Hard enough to crack it.

But Kanji was a big guy; the moment he face planted back onto the floor, he was already trying to scramble back onto his feet, if a bit shakily.

"Don…. nd there! W…. moving!"

 _Dark gray skin, almost pitch black... Humanoid shape..._

G...od, his head hurt... But despite i...t, the boy tried to focus again, before he began to forget the details.

 _A single eye, a thick torso, long limbs, six fingers fingers on b...both hands, and... Tentacles? What the fuck!?_

That should be enough to go on...

 _'But... Hanamura and Tatsumi, they're still alive, aren't they? How did they survive the explosion?'_

He became dimly aware of footsteps nearing him, back in his physical body.

 _'Shit... not much time left...'_

Quickly weighing his options, he decided to take the risk, and—

 _—Reached for the nearest object he could anchor himself to._

"Hey, you smell that?"

Kanji took a quick sniff at the air, then nodded with a grimace. "Yeah… Gas leak. It must have knocked a pipe loose while we were fighting, or-"

The noise ripped through the air once more.

Yosuke and Kanji noticed it at the same time. The enemy was there, it's head peeking out of the corner. It brought its hand into view, and their blood ran cold when they saw what it held.

A lighter.

Somewhere, somehow, the motherfucker had gotten a lighter.

"No…"

They could both see the mad glint in its single yellow eye as it flipped the ornate ivory object open, and put its smallest finger over the switch.

Yosuke slipped his hand behind his back, and di...screetly…. at Kanji, and they shared a nod.

"Parley?" Yosuke tried.

"BOOM," it responded, and as it pushed down on the igniter, Yosuke whirled and tossed his Evoker at Kanji.

He ca...ught it, and barely managed to b...bri...ng forth Rokuten Maō just as a blinding flash and a w...ave of flames swept over th...e...

And th….at was all Saito Shimura could take before he finally gave in, slumping forward right off his chair, and falling face first o….nto t…...he floor.

He laid completely still there for a few moments, until his eyes opened again with a gasp. Then promptly closed them again when the bright lighting of the room made his head start pounding in agony.

Saito managed to climb back onto the chair and heaved silently for a few minutes, until he felt a tickling sensation on his upper lip. Blinking out the tears that had pooled in his eyes, he raised a finger to his nostrils then brought it to eye level, confirming that he was indeed bleeding.

The booming sound of footsteps grew closer, until he heard the door open, and an ear-splitting voice exploded throughout the room.

"Holy— …..ura, are you al….right?" His voice rang painfully in his ears.

Cringing, the boy managed to mumble out, "...'Oo loud…"

The man grasped him by the arms and helped him back onto the chair. Saito stared at him for a long while, trying to reconcile the man's face with a name.

 _Cropped gray hair, scarred face, short stubble… Ak… Akihiko… Sanada?_

It took a mi….nute for his muddled mind to register this information and remember that this man was Akihiko Sanada. His manager.

"What happened?"

"I-I tried to scan the station. S...ee what they were fighting. I think I w-went too far. T-too much fe….." He trailed off and stared vacantly forward.

Saito snapped back to reality when he realized Sanada was shaking his shoulders. "Hey, Shimura-kun! Can you hear me?!"

"...Ju- just the feedback… Head hurts…"

The man shook his head in exasperation. "Shimura, you didn't think to at least get someone to spot for you?"

"I- No... S-sorry..."

"Just... don't worry about it. Listen, can you walk? I can get you down to the infirmary."

The boy shook his head fiercely, nearly making himself topple over again before Sanada caught him. "No! N-no. I'm sorry, S-Sanada-san, but I found out... I-I gotta talk to Yamagishi-san, o-or the director! Anyone!"

"Shimura, you're _bleeding_. What you gotta do is get to a medic."

"It's just from the feedback, Sanada-san!" He exclaimed, wiping away some of the blood on his nose. "P-please, just listen—When I was o-out there, I saw Hanamura-san and Tatsumi-san f-fighting the Shadow! I saw how it fought, how it beat them. I- That thing's still out there right? T-then I can help!"

Sanada seemed to have a brief internal debate with himself, before he finally nodded. "Alright… Alright, can you walk?" Saito managed a shallow nod, and stood on shaky feet. "Okay, listen; Fuuka-san's already gone home, but Mit… The Director is still up in her office." He reached over and slung the boy's arm across his shoulders. "If we hurry, we might be able to catch her before she leaves. Think you're up for it?"

At Saito's nod, they exited the break room, and stepped out into an immaculate white hallway. The light bouncing off the highly reflective surfaces was almost too much for Saito to take, and he immediately shut his eyes, allowing the man to lead him.

"The feedback again?"

"Y-yeah," he mumbled through chattering teeth. "Light's t-too bright. Don't... worry about it, it'll go away in a few minutes."

Sanada frowned at him, but relented with a sigh. "If you say so. But if it starts to get worse, you gotta let me know, alright, Shimura-kun? I'll take you to the infirmary in no time."

As they continued walking, Saito noted the strange silence in the hallway. Usually, the entire building was abuzz with activity.

"Hey, Sanada-san, h-how come it's so empty here? S-shouldn't there be more people?"

He felt the man shrug. "It's ten o'clock. Almost everyone who isn't on the nightshift's already gone home."

 _'Ten o'clock?'_ Saito barely suppressed a gasp. _'Holy shit, how long was I in there?'_

Eventually they reached an elevator, leaving behind the garish brightness of the hallway. Once they entered, and Sanada-san punched in the password for the top floor, the boy risked opening his eyes. Thankfully, the elevator's earthy brown interior wasn't bright enough to worsen his already pounding headache.

Saito gave Sanada-san a nod, and tried to take in his surroundings enough to get his eyes adjusted to the light.

The elevator pinged open, and with the boy's arm still slung over his shoulder, Sanada-san helped Saito walk through the long, straight hall that composed the top level of the Headquarters.

In all honesty, Saito felt nervous of being in this place. The top level hosted only a single room, the director's office, and was usually restricted to non-senior personnel. Indeed, the first and only time he'd been up to the top floor was back when the Organization had determined that he could serve as a Navigator, shortly after his initial evaluation.

"Alright, we're here," Sanada-san said, as they came to a stop before a set of wooden double doors. "Right, the director should still be here. She doesn't usually leave 'till -"He moved to open the door, but Saito's hand suddenly lashed out and seized his wrist. "Shimura? What's wrong?"

"I- I'm not…" Saito said - Or at least he tried to. The words didn't really manage to come out. Clearing his throat, he shakily spoke again. "I'm not sure if it- if what I saw's even gonna be useful. I mean... it was only bits and pieces of the fight, and-"

He slumped his shoulders with a sigh. "L-look, Sanada-san, I s-shouldn't be wasting the director's time with this, you know? She's probably busy, so I should just—"

Sanada raised his hand to cut him off. "Shimura, you wanna know something interesting?"

The boy stared at him confusedly for a moment, before nodding and sheepishly releasing his wrist.

"Fuuka-san came by earlier today," Sanada-san said, as he smoothed out his suit, "and tried her hand at scanning the station. She was at it for a whole two hours, and you wanna know what she found in the end?" he asked rhetorically. "Nothing. Zip. Nada. And she is one of, if not the best, Navigators we have.

"Shimura-kun, the fact that your ability let you find something she wasn't able to is amazing in and of itself. Look, even if you think it's not much, it might be important anyways. You shouldn't sell yourself so short. You're a Navigator, and that makes you one of the most valuable people we have around.

"Everything's gonna be fine, Shimura-kun. You just take it easy, alright? We're just gonna go in, you'll tell her what you saw, and that'll be it." He gave the boy a supportive smile. "Nothing complicated, right?"

Saito tried to return the smile. He wasn't quite sure if he succeeded. "R-right…"

And with that, Sanada-san turned, and rapped his knuckles on the door.

The instant he did, a voice called out, "Come in."

With a final encouraging slap on the shoulder to Saito, Sanada-san opened the double doors, and they stepped inside.

The director's office was the height of opulence, a testament to its owner's wealth. The three rich cream-colored walls were adorned by shelves and bookcases of mahogany, the floor was covered by a matching carpet, and a large window occupied the space of the east wall, providing a view of the ocean and the starry night sky.

And before that window, sitting at a mahogany desk, was the director of the Shadow Operatives, Kirijō Mitsuru.

She was beautiful. This wasn't a compliment or exaggeration. It was a simple fact.

She was a lithely built woman, a frame which belied her impressive expertise in combat, and had long wine red hair falling elegantly around her face and down her back. Her red eyes studied them both carefully, her face an impassive mask of professionalism.

"Ma'am," Sanada greeted, bowing before her, an action which Saito shakily repeated. The boy tried to meet to meet her eyes, to disguise his anxiety, but wavered after just a split moment, and directed his gaze fixedly at the floor.

"Sanada-san, Shimura-kun," she returned with a light smile. "Please, sit," she said, nodding to the two leather chairs before her desk.

"It's quite late," she said, bridging her fingers before her, "I'm surprised neither of you have gone home already. "Has something happened?"

Sanada, who was completely at ease in a way that marveled Saito, nodded. "Shimura-kun analyzed the train station earlier, ma'am. We think he might've found out something about the incident from earlier."

She raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Is that right?" She turned towards the boy, who attempted once more to maintain eye contact. "And what exactly did you see, Shimura-kun?"

"I… Earlier today, a-after Yamagishi-san told me that she hadn't found anything in the station, she said that maybe my ability m-might be able to figure it out somehow. I- I didn't really think I could do much, but I tried it anyways about an hour ago. I… I saw…"

He flinched as he trailed off. His eyes briefly darted over to the surface of her desk, where several documents were stacked orderly. He caught sight of one at the top, and managed to read the words 'isolated circumstance,' and 'JSDF,' before realizing he wasn't authorized to even look at any of this, and glancing away.

Saito took a breath to calm himself. "I saw Hanamura-san and Tatsumi-san there," he continued once some of the tension had left him. "Fighting a Shadow."

"I- I didn't manage see much of the fight, it — The memory was t-too scattered, but… I know the Shadow was fast, way faster than they could keep up with — They couldn't even see it moving. It was just running circles around them, and just playing around with them, like…" he remembered Hanamura's thought. "Like a cat with mice."

He paused again, to lick his dried lips and steady his shaking hands. "It must have knocked a pipe loose at some point. T-that's, uh, that's what caused the gas leak, by the way. O-oh! And it must have found a lighter, somewhere, at some point. 'Cause t-that's what it used to blow up the station."

The director closed her eyes, as if pondering this information. "I see…" Her eyes snapped open suddenly as she asked, "Shimura, did you find any traces of a Breach during your Dive?"

Saito shrugged. "N-no, nothing like that Ma'am. And even before then, there was nothing from the F-first Layer anywhere nearby. The place was c-completely stable. It's like… It's almost as if the Shadow just appeared from o-out of nowhere."

His expression suddenly lit up as he remembered a detail. "Oh! T-that's right, I did notice that the station was covered in holes."

This time Sanada-san was the one to raise an eyebrow. "...Holes?"

"W-well, more like craters. They were each about a meter wide, a-and they were all over one half of the room, but—"

"But completely absent in the other, correct?" The director finished.

"Ah, y-yeah," Saito stammered. "You knew about them? M-ma'am?"

"Yamagishi-san had already informed me of them, yes."

Sanada mulled this over. "Then… Are you saying that the Shadow was just throwing Megidos around in there?"

The boy shook his head. "No, I- I don't think so, Sanada-san. It looked like it was relying only on p-physical attacks."

"Not to mention that anything that powerful on our Side would have caused the entire station to crumble in on itself," the director added. "So with that I suppose it's safe to discount the possibility of the enemy having any ranged capabilities, at least until Hanamura and Tatsumi can provide us with their own report." She shook her head, and smiled at Saito. "Regardless of that, you've been a great help, Shimura-kun. Thank you."

"S-sure, no problem!"

"You should head back to your dormitory now. After all, the school year does begin tomorrow," she added with a knowing look, before turning to Sanada. "Akihiko, would you please stay behind? I need to speak with you."

"Sure thing," the man nodded, and gave Saito a short wave. "I'll see you tomorrow, Shimura. Take it easy, alright?"

"Yeah, y-you too," the boy stammered as he bowed to them both. "See you tomorrow t-then, director Kirijō, Sanada-san."

Just before he reached the door, Kirijō's voice called out to him once more. "One more thing, before you leave. Keep in mind that the enemy may still be hiding in the city itself, or lurking within the First Layer. And right now, we have no way of knowing where it could be. As such, the city will remain in an Alert Phase throughout the weekend. If nothing comes up by Monday, we'll de-escalate to the Caution Phase. Until then, please be careful, and keep an eye out on your way back home, Shimura-kun."

"Y-yes, Ma'am, thank you. Uhh, bye then," he bowed once more, then made his way out of her office, rode the elevator down, and exited the Headquarters.

Instead of heading north, towards the Moonlight Bridge to cross over to the mainland, Saito walked towards the south side of Port Island, past the train station, and to the Marina d'ile de clair de lune.

Once he could see the ocean, he shut his eyes and tried to remember the boy he'd seen before.

 _Black hair, arm in a cast, it was broken recently. What caused this? Gray eyes. No, Dark-gray. His name… His name was Kei._

With that, he swallowed in anticipation, pulled out his phone, and dialed a number.

"Y-yes, hello? I'd like to make an order."

* * *

"Alright, here we are," Soma declared as he opened the door and flipped on the lights. "Home sweet home, eh?"

It actually was a pretty nice place, Kei realized. Way larger than the average inner city studio, too.

Soma's apartment had a comfortably large living room furnished with two couches — one of which was actually a western futon — on one end, a table in the middle, and at the other end, large tv stand with various electronics and a widescreen tv above it. Adjacent to the living room were a kitchen with space for both cooking and eating, and a small hallway with two doors, which probably led to Soma's room and the bathroom.

"Make yourself comfortable, Kei-kun. _Mi casa, su casa_ , and all that," Soma yawned as he tossed his keys in the general direction of the kitchen counter. They bounced off the wooden surface and landed squarely in a trash can next to it.

"Huh, now I see why the whole basketball thing didn't pan out for ya," Kei joked, dropping his bag next to the couch, and carefully beginning to take off his sling.

Flustered, his cousin plucked out his keys and placed them on the counter. "Shove it."

"So, who'd you have to bribe to get a place like this, anyway?"

Soma shrugged. "Work pays well. By the way," he added, nodding at Kei's sling, "you need a hand with that?"

"Yeah, thanks."

Once the sling and jacket were off, leaving Kei wearing just a t-shirt and his cast, the two sat on the couch. Soma reached for the box of pizza they'd bought on the way, only to find it empty. He gave the boy a _look_. "Dude. _The whole thing?_ "

Kei at least had the decency to look embarrassed as he shrugged back. "Hey, man, I spent the whole day on a bus. Cut me some slack!"

Grumbling under his breath, Soma went for the calzone instead.

Kei rested his head against the back of the couch and shut his eyes, taking a moment to finally relax. Hearing his cousin say something, he opened his eyes again. "Sorry, what was that?"

"I said you missed out on the orientation."

"...Oh. Oh! Yeah, I almost forgot about that."

Soma nodded as he took another bite. "Mhmm. I was supposed to take you there, but… Well, you know," he made a gesture with his hands. "Boom. No need to worry about it, though. I'll just talk to my boss tomorrow, and see if we can get it rescheduled."

"So, do you know what it was supposed to be about?"

A troubled, uncomfortable look suddenly spread across Soma's face. "I… Look, I — I'm not exactly the person you should be talking to about this."

A noncommittal response. Now that was odd. What was so unnerving about such a simple question? What was there to hide?

"How come?"

"Because… Well, reasons?" He shrugged.

Kei looked ready to argue, but reigned himself in and sighed. It'd be no good to push too hard too quickly. Too much pressure, and Soma would withdraw, leaving him without answers.

Kei's features softened, and he let out a soft chuckle. "Lemme guess; Top secret, national security-tier classified information, yeah?"

"Yeah, that's one way of putting it." Soma tried to give him an apologetic smile.

An awkward silence fell between the two of them, until Kei let out a deep yawn.

"Tired?"

The boy nodded. "Uh-huh... I'm just about ready to drop dead."

"Well, it's about time to hit the sack, anyway." Soma stood up, having finished eating. "You cool with crashing on the futon?"

"Yeah, fine by me," the boy carefully stretched his arm while his cousin opened up the futon. "Uhh, you did get my uniform already, yeah? Mom said you'd take care of it."

"It's cool, it's all in the closet." He nodded at the closet in question, located next to the entrance. "Now get some sleep, we gotta be up at seven a.m. sharp."

"Seven a.m. sharp. Gotcha."

Soma began to make his way back to his room, but paused in the hallway. "Listen, Kei-kun, I…" He hesitated, trying to come up with the right words to say. "I know you're confused, and I know you want answers, but… It's all gonna come in time, okay? So just relax, try to recover. Iwatodai is the safest place for you to be."

The lights went off, and Kei Kamiya just laid on the futon, staring at the ceiling and contemplating those words.

 _'Iwatodai is the safest place...'_

Somehow, he sincerely doubted that.

* * *

There was no wind there. No heat, no cold. Just gray. An endless landscape of gray land spread out as far as the eye could see. Looming gray mountains in the distant horizon. Motionless gray skies up above. This was the world he saw in his dreams every single night for the past two weeks.

Always the same dream, of a barren gray wasteland…

Honestly, if he didn't know better, he'd think that either his mind had just ran out of creativity, or this was a sign from the heavens that he needed to buy some colored printer ink.

But in truth, he'd never been completely convinced that it really was a dream.

A sword, dull gray and vaguely shaped like an European straight sword, materialized and remained suspended in the air before him. Exactly the kind of bizarre thing you'd see only in dreams, right?

Kei reached out and grasped the plain gray weapon. When he first came here he'd been surprised at how light it felt. He'd always expected a real sword like this to weigh, like at the least, ten pounds.

He ran his hand along the broad flat of the blade, feeling the cold steel on his fingers, and the equally cold and gray leather wrapping around the sword's handle. In his first night there, he was shocked when he realized that he could actually feel the sword he held in his hand.

If he was in a dream, and was aware that he was in a dream, then he should have been lucid dreaming, in control of everything that happened here.

So, due to the sensation of touch, the severe lack of girls making out, and his inability to make pizza rain from the sky, the only logical conclusion was that this wasn't a dream. And somehow, while he was unconscious in the hospital, he'd invented some form of teleportation.

Which only worked when he fell asleep.

And could only take him to the most basic-ass plane of existence imaginable.

Either that, or he was _actually_ dreaming that he was in a dream inside a dream inside a dream, just like in that one foreign movie, or something.

He wasn't really sure, and the truth was probably so bizarre and complicated that he couldn't really bring himself to care.

The sound of footsteps approaching from behind him broke him out of his contemplations on dream-physics.

He turned around to see what sneaking up to him. There was nothing there.

But he'd seen enough movies and been in this place enough times to know what would happen next.

Kei turned around to look in the direction he'd first been facing, and saw a figure with a sword, similar to his, in hand standing there. The swordsman before him was gray, semi-transparent, and vaguely human shaped, with the usual four limbs and one head all accounted for. No words were spoken. The swordsman just set his weapon to rest on his shoulder and made a beckoning gesture with his free hand.

So throwing caution to the wind, he rushed forward, sword held up above him, and swung down at his opponent's head when he was in range.

The swordsman just shifted to the side, avoiding the strike as if it were the simplest thing in the world.

Kei barely managed to stop himself from sucking his teeth. It had been a stupid move for sure, he realized belatedly. There was no way in a million years that the enemy would fall to such a clumsy strike. But even so, there was no point in moaning over it.

He'd just have to do better.

With a white glint, the sword came down from his opponent's shoulder, and shot forward towards Kei.

The boy pivoted on the balls of his feet to avoid the thrust, and ended up behind the swordsman. There, he seized the moment, and swung at his opponent's back.

At the very last second, the swordsman spun around and parried the blow, pushing the boy back and nearly causing him to drop the weapon from the shock.

"—!"

 _'That was… stronger.'_ Much, much stronger than in their past encounters. Kei had fought him enough times to remember the force of his blows. And this was beyond that strength he'd become so familiar with over the past weeks.

But what—?

Out of the corner of his eye, Kei saw his opponent close the distance with astounding speed, not even allowing Kei to plant his feet firmly on the ground. The boy tried to block the blow, and once again he felt pain shoot in his hand, up his wrist, through his arm, and into his entire body.

 _'Holy… He's really taking off the kid gloves!'_

All this monstrous strength packed in a single blow… and the enemy still wasn't even in his rhythm yet!

Kei exhaled. "Ha—! No helping it, then…" This was to his advantage. The swordsman still wasn't fighting with his full strength, still hadn't forced Kei into following his tempo.

Which meant—

"Guess I'm gonna have to push my own offensive!"

—He could still push _his_ own tempo, and seize the upper hand.

He rushed to intercept the next swing, heedless of the jolt running up his arm.

He pushed forward, and all of his attacks were blocked, parried, and dodged. But that didn't matter. In a battle where any hit could be the final blow, evasion only added a subtle extra edge to the fight. An increased tension, knowing that the stakes were raised so high.

It added that and so much more to the primal thrill of —?

 _'What the hell!?'_

That intrusive thought threw Kei off, enough for him to falter in his assault, allowing his opponent to capitalize on the sudden opening between the boy's blows.

Even as the sword's hilt slammed into his stomach, Kei grit his teeth, managing to endure enough to disengage from the fight and back off.

With a few meters of distance between him and his opponent, Kei tried to regain his breath. "Hey, take it easy guy! I'm allergic to swords!" He said in between gasps. "Doctor says I can't have 'em pass through me at all times."

The enemy shrugged, then rushed right back into the fray.

As his opponent began his counter attack, Kei realized that he'd screwed up badly by faltering in his assault. He could have continued to push his tempo, forced the fight to progress by it.

Now that the enemy had taken the advantage, there was only one way this fight could go.

The swordsman's fighting style was erratic and energetic, like that of a predator on the hunt. He leapt back and forth, striking several times from one angle, and then dancing away before Kei could retaliate, only to come back in from another angle.

One.

Two.

Three—!

Just three strikes, and his arm already felt like it would shatter like porcelain.

A fourth came whooshing overhead, and Kei lifted his blade to block it.

The mighty blow slammed into his sword with all fury, the impact of clashing steel resonating throughout their empty battlefield. Somehow, Kei had once again endured the jarring shock of blocking the attack. But it still left him dazed, and in that split second it took him to recover—!

A thin vertical gash spread across his chest, the result of the wind-swift attack that had snuck in while he was staggered.

There was no hesitation in the enemy's movement. His barrage began in earnest once more. Leaping back and forth, left and right, he was a starving beast of prey, hunting for his daily feast. A fifth slash shot towards Kei's midsection. He blocked it, and received cuts across his arms for his trouble. A sixth flew at his face. He slapped it away, and the second strike scraped across his nose.

And so it went on.

Kei struggled to match his opponent's blows, burning with hopeless defiance. For every hit that he managed to block, two more found their mark, slowly but surely whittling down the boy's defenses.

He attempted to strike out when the enemy overextended his right leg, only for the leg to shoot forwards and strike him in the chin.

 _'Ah—!'_

Kei grit his teeth and forced himself to blink out the tears pooling in his eyes.

That merciless onslaught had taken only a few seconds. But to Kei's eyes, it might as well have lasted years. Every hit had been nearly visible to him. Every last one. He could see with painful clarity the way the swordsman's gray body moved in preparation for each strike. He could barely see them swiftly moving towards him, yet his body could only move fast enough to deflect a handful, while the rest tore into him with no resistance.

It was always like this. He was inexperienced, forced to use his offhand, and fighting against an opponent who was so far out of his league they might as well be playing different sports.

This fight was so pointless…

Even if he continued trying to block…

Even if he tried to attack…

Even if he thought of a million different ways to fight back, the end result would be the same.

The same as it had been every other night.

Kei would lose.

The relentless offensive continued, until the swordsman broke off his advance and reared back.

He gave the boy just a split second of respite.

Kei's gray eyes stared into the equally colored abyss that was his opponent's face, and the still silence communicated all the boy needed to know; He intended to end the fight right now, with his next attack.

The swordsman gripped his blade horizontally with both hands, tip pointing behind him, and in that single instant—

Even though his opponent hadn't yet moved, Kei knew that this one would be his death. Too much… It was just too much power focused into a single attack. A wide horizontal slash that would break through any defense, like a tsunami through an island. Regardless, his arm was too numb tired to even be raised.

So Kei Kamiya did the only thing he could do.

He closed his eyes, and pushed his body _down_.

—The slash cut apart the space where Kei's torso had been just a split second prior.

The sheer speed of it tore apart the air and the space itself. All was silent for a split moment, and then the air cracked powerfully.

Kei winced as the sonic boom reverberated like a gunshot just above his head. In his rush to avoid the attack, he'd fallen flat on his ass and dropped his sword.

 _'It's no use.'_

His hands shook uncontrollably.

 _'He's been sandbagging all along…'_

It almost felt ironically obvious, in hindsight. Of course the swordsman was holding back. For him, fighting Kei at full strength would probably take all the sport out of it.

The boy knew it was hopeless. Over two weeks of constant battle, with the same result each and every time. And now, right out of the blue, it turned out that his enemy had been showing barely a fraction of his true strength.

At this point, why even bother anymore?

But even so, his fingers found his sword, and tightened around it with a death grip, as he forced himself up on shaky legs. Kei would still fight. He had no idea what possessed him to fight on, night after night, trying to do the impossible like an insane person, but he allowed himself to follow through.

As the boy drew in heavy breaths, the swordsman circled him—clockwise— and casually began twirling his weapon around in his hands.

Faced with imminent defeat, Kei allowed a small smirk to spread, and gave in to a truly desperate, last-ditch tactic—

"You're one helluva conversationalist, you know that?"

—Trash talk.

The swordsman cocked his head, sword flipping about in his left hand, then towards his right, and back to the left.

"Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. The whole 'strong silent type' shtick's really starting to get annoying."

He wasn't orbiting around the boy in a perfect circle; it was more of an oval, really, and every time he passed by Kei's left, the distance between the two of them shortened more and more.

"Aren't you sword master types supposed to be all honorable, or whatever?" The swordsman passed by Kei's right, the farthest point between the two of them, his sword dancing in his left hand. Away from the boy.

"Y'know, shout your name, swordsmanship school, dangle size and Instagram at the dude you're fighting. Or is that just movie stuff?" His opponent completely ignored the taunt and completed his latest lap around Kei, bringing him just a few feet away.

The boy let out a loud sigh. "Alright, good talk. So, I don't suppose we can just call it a night here and let me go? Don't get me wrong," he nodded at the wasteland, "this place is neat and all, but it gets kinda—!"

His taunt suddenly cut off.

The enemy had come within arm's reach, his sword in his right hand, away from Kei.

This was his moment.

Dropping all pretenses, he rushed towards the swordsman, rearing his arm back, then driving it forward—

With casual ease, the swordsman sidestepped the stab, swept the boy's legs out with a kick, and yanked the sword out of his hand on the way down.

Kei fell face-first on the ground, the momentum of his charge making him skid forward for a few feet before coming to a stop. Dazed, he rolled over onto his back, and as soon as he saw the gray sky, he felt the wind get blown out of him as a large weight fell on his stomach. Kneeling on his torso was the swordsman, holding both swords over the his throat, ready to scissor off his head with a simple twitch on the wrists.

The figure shook his head, stood up from Kei's chest, and simply looked at him.

Even though those eyes were clouded by gray, Kei knew that they were judging him. His gaze held no malice or spite. If anything, it was almost like he was… disappointed. As if Kei had somehow let him down by being unable to beat him.

Then, with a flash of white the two swords pierced ruthlessly into the boy's chest.

There wasn't any time to even see the attack, much less dodge it.

Overwhelming pain flooded his entire body as blood gushed from his mouth—

And the gray world faded.

* * *

April 6th, 2014

Kei's eyes snapped open. With a yawn, he sat up from the futon and patted his chest. Finding himself free of any foreign holes, he reached over to the table, and checked his phone.

It was exactly seven a.m.

He ran a hand through his hair and chuckled. "That guy's one hell of an alarm clock…"


	3. The World in Its True Form: Part 2

Niko Kiyomi looked like the textbook example of a teacher. Tall and passingly handsome, he wore half-rimmed glasses, a neat navy blue suit, and black hair fashioned into a professional crew cut. Moreover, he was polite and genial, speaking with a friendly tone as gave a brief tour of the school to his three new transfer students.

Gekkoukan High was the local secondary school in the city of Iwatodai, built on the artificial island of Tatsumi Port Island. And considering its location in a metropolitan city, Gekkoukan was pretty large. It had been built back in the nineties shortly after the construction of Port Island itself, and had flourished over recent years, thanks to generous funding by the Kirijou Group, yadda yadda yadda.

However informative as it all was, none of it explained to Kei why he had been accepted to this borderline boarding school halfway across the country—Which he had never even applied to—right out of the blue.

"Alright, here we are," Mr. Kiyomi said, as he came to a stop before a classroom door labeled as 2-B.

He turned to address the three students following him, briefly pausing to tilt his glasses. "Now then, would you three mind waiting while I begin class?"

He received two quiet nods and a squeaked affirmative.

"Brilliant," he smiled. "This won't take too long."

And with that, he walked inside, leaving the three transfer students in the hallway.

Running a hand through his hair, Kei leaned against the wall and glanced at his fellow transfer students. The most noticeable of the two was a gangly boy with messy blue hair and a pair of glasses covering his large eyes. He too leaned against the wall, with a small frown and bored, faraway look on his face. The other guy, who had curly sand-brown hair and a nervous expression, just stood fidgeting awkwardly in the middle of the hallway, looking as if he were uncomfortable in his own skin.

None of the three were particularly inclined to make conversation.

Through the still open door, they could see the class rep, a tall blonde boy, yelling out the standard introduction of "Stand! Bow! Sit!" before Mr. Kiyomi came to the podium at the front, and officially began the class. "Good morning, and welcome to Junior year, everyone. I am Niko Kiyomi, and I will be your Mathematics and homeroom teacher this year.

"Now, before we begin, I'd like you all to welcome our class's transfer students." Turning towards the door, he motioned for them to come in. "Come inside and introduce yourselves."

Shrugging, the guy with glasses pushed himself off the wall, and walked into the classroom. Kei was about to follow him when he noticed that the tense-looking kid hadn't budged an inch.

"Hey, you coming in?"

The boy suddenly jumped and nodded. "A-ah, yeah! Sorry!"

The blue-haired guy had finished writing the kanji for his name on the chalkboard, '宮崎 勝' and turned to face the rest of the class. "Hey, I'm Masaru Miyazaki," he said with a shallow bow and a lazy wave, then sat down at the nearest desk he could find, on the front row.

The other boy stepped up next, writing his own name, '志村 才人' with surprisingly neat calligraphy, and bowed deeply. "H-Hi, I'm Saito Shimura. Please t-take care of me!"

And then, it was his turn. Kei didn't really consider himself a shy person by any means, but he still felt some sort anxiety as he walked to the front and started writing down his name as legibly as he could with his right hand.

Heh, he could practically feel the other students staring at the cast on his arm, wondering how that had happened.

Here, nobody knew him. He was a completely blank slate. He wasn't really sure what he wanted to do now, or what to look forward to, but he figured he might as well see where things could go from here.

With the kanji for his name, '神谷 恵' written on the blackboard and at least kind of legible, the boy turned to his new classmates and put on the best smile he could. "Hi, I'm Kei Kamiya. It's nice to meet you all."

* * *

The morning periods passed by quickly and were largely uneventful. They mostly consisted of Mr. Kiyomi giving lectures about what should be expected in this year's classes, homework lateness policies, the works.

He only stopped when the bell rang, announcing the end of classes for the day. There was a general cheer amongst the class as they began gathering their belongings, before Mr. Kiyomi stamped down on it all.

"Actually, you're not being dismissed quite yet."

The class's cheer turned to a collective groan.

"I'm sorry, everyone, but due to the explosion yesterday, classes had to start later than usual. So to compensate for that, you will all be dismissed at one-thirty, instead of twelve-thirty. So with that said, you all have forty minutes for lunch, and we'll resume class at twelve-forty five."

And with that, the students began to get settled for lunch.

The other two transfers, Miyazaki and Shimura, had already taken out their own lunches.

...Well, kinda. Shimura was eating from a store-made bento, while Miyazaki scooped his head up in his arms and contentedly snoozed the lunch period away.

Kei in particular stood from his desk and headed down to get some food from the cafeteria.

As he walked down the hall, towards the first floor, he walked straight into someone as he rounded a corner.

Steadying himself just in time to avoid falling, Kei stammered off a quick apology. "Whoa, sorry man, you alright?"

The boy he had bumped into brushed himself off with a chuckle. "Yes, I'm alright."

He then proceeded to stare at Kei for several long, uncomfortable seconds.

"Uhh…"

"Oh, I'm sorry, where are my manners? My name is Rin Mikami, it's nice to meet you," he said, extending a hand.

Kei raised an eyebrow at the western greeting, but shook his hand regardless. "I'm Kei Kamiya, nice to meet you too, Mikami-san."

Now that he got a good look at him, he noticed that Mikami looked to be around the same age as him. He was a pretty pale guy, with shaggy bright green hair tied into a ponytail and green eyes.

"Kei Kamiya?" Mikami's eyes suddenly lit up, and his handshake went from worryingly enthusiastic to downright vigorous, as he shook Kei's hand like his sole purpose in life was to tear people's arms off. "I've been looking forward to meeting you for a long time, Kei-kun!"

"Were you?" Kei winced through clenched teeth. "Sorry pal, I think you forgot to make an appointment?"

"An appo…? Ah, that was a joke. Yes, I thought you'd be quite comedic."

"Y-yeah. You, uh, you mind? I kinda need that hand."

"Oh sorry, my mistake,"

"Don't worry about it," Kei said, as he shook some feeling back into his hand. "So, do I know you from somewhere?"

Mikami shook his head and gave him a mellow smile. "No. I'm fairly certain that we've actually never met before. But that doesn't really mean that I can't wait for the day when we finally meet."

'Oh, he's crazy.' Fantastic. Time to play it cool.

"Neat. I don't wanna be rude, or anything', but—" Mikami stepped uncomfortably close to him. "Waiwhoa—! Hello, welcome to my personal space! How can I help you?"

Mikami examined his face closely with an intent gaze, before he pulled away at last. "That's odd…"

 _'Pot, meet Kettle...'_ Kei refrained from saying that, and instead asked, "What is?"

"It's nothing important." Mikami set his smile once more. "Regardless, I should be going now. I look forward to speaking with you more, Kei-kun."

Kei wasn't sure whether he should correct Mikami on his familiarity, or just be glad this conversation was over. As the other boy walked away with a cheery wave, Kei decided on the latter.

Strangely enough, he didn't really feel like eating anymore.

 _'Well, there goes my appetite…'_

Deciding to eat lunch after getting back to Soma's place, Kei returned to the classroom, and the moment he opened the door, he met someone.

He was one of his classmates, a teen with dark orange hair styled up into a fauxhawk, and some light stubble around his jaw. Someone who would probably be one of the most important people in his life in the coming year. Someone whom he would come to know as a comrade, friend, and brother.

Someone whose fist was currently flying towards his skull at the speed of 'I will fuck you up.'

* * *

Now, let's rewind a bit here, and explain why our not-so-dashing hero just got the living daylights knocked out of him.

"Aww, man..." a boy mumbled as he sadly gazed at the whole bunch of nothing that he had brought to school today. This was Shaojie Feng, a junior student in class 2-B.

Shaojie was now facing a dilemma that many people go through throughout their lives; He forgot to bring his lunch.

Sighing, he slumped back on his seat and tried to ignore the delicious smells of food wafting into his nose. After a few minutes, he finally caved in and tapped the shoulder of the redheaded girl sitting in front of him.

"Psst, hey, Shiranui," he whispered. No response. "Shiranui," he repeated, and this time he saw her knuckles clench and unclench ever so slightly. "Shiranuuuu~i… C'mon, Naomi-chan, I'm talking to you!"

At last, the girl turned around in her seat and face him. To be honest, Naomi Shiranui was a very good looking girl. In fact, with her long red hair, bright blue eyes, and sharp half-American features, Shaojie would even go so far as to say she was beautiful.

Wasn't really his type, though. She had a bit of an… attitude.

"Yes, Feng-kun?" Naomi asked sweetly, with a toothy grin so twisted Shaojie could almost hear half the world's infants crying out in horror. 'Case in point…'

Mustering up his courage, Shaojie tried to ignore her terrifying not-smile, and asked, "You got anything extra there you could share? I kinda left my—"

"No," was the curt response he got from the girl before she turned back to her lunch.

He stared at her back in sheer astonishment for a few seconds. "Aww, come on Naomi-chan, I'm starving here!"

"Then go get something from the cafeteria."

"Really? You'd have me risk eating Saturday's mystery meat?"

She winced with sympathy. "Okay, maybe not. Well, why don't you go and buy something from the snack bar downstairs?"

"Ah, well… I don't have much money," Shaojie admitted bashfully.

Naomi huffed. "Feng, you never have _any_ money."

"Yeah, and that's not much money now, is it?"

The classroom's door opened, and in walked a short blonde boy. He looked around the room before noticing Shaojie, and waved him over with a wide grin on his face. "Yo, Shaojie-kun!"

With a last exasperated glance at the redhead, Shaojie stood up. "Hey, Taiji," he greeted as he walked up to his friend. "What's happenin'?"

"Okay dude, I saw that show you were telling me about, and—Don't make me repeat this, 'cause I'm only saying it once—You were right. That show was the shit."

"Booyah! Yes!" Shaojie laughed and slung an arm around his friend's shoulder. "Come on, say it again, Taiji, lemme hear it one more time!"

"Go to hell, man," Taiji laughed.

"Hey, don't get all butthurt just 'cause you were wrong, brah! But really, though, what episode are you up to?"

Taiji scratched his chin. "Ahh… Episode seven or eight, I think. The one where Ippo's having a rematch against Miyata."

"Oh yeah, I think I remember! He was eating shit the whole fight, but then he knocked Miyata out with an uppercut, right?" Shaojie began to pantomime a basic jab-cross combo. "Miyata was just giving him the hands, real hardcore, and then—"

He reared back and ducked low. "—Ippo made a comeback, and knocked him down with an uppercut!" Shaojie pivoted on his rear foot, driving his hand up—!

And at that very same moment, the classroom door opened.

It was almost like a work of destiny. Just as Shaojie's fist soared upwards, one of the transfer students—that one guy with the broken arm—walked into the classroom. Shaojie hadn't even noticed the guy was there until he felt his fist smash into the transfer student's jaw.

The sound that emanated from his throat as he fell back into the hallway could only be described as a cross between the Wilhelm scream and what a velociraptor would probably sound like if you were to pour sulfuric acid on its testicles.

Silence reigned within the room for several tense moment, until Shaojie himself broke the stillness with a small, almost whispered, "Oh shit."

And with that, the class burst into conversation with cries of "Holy shit!" "Oh my God!" and other such exclamations.

"Good show, Feng," came Naomi's irritated voice from behind him. "First day of the semester, and you've already murdered one of the rookies. Nice going."

"Wha- Come on, I didn't even know this dude was about to walk in here!"

"That doesn't really change the fact that you put him right to sleep. Come on," she said, stooping down to sling one of his arms over her shoulders. "We gotta get him to the infirmary before the Mr. Kiyomi or the class rep come back."

"'We?' Wait, you're gonna help? Why?"

Naomi heaved a long-suffering sigh and met his eyes. "What? Is it that much of a stretch to think that I'd help you out of the goodness of my heart?"

"Umm, well, don't take this wrong way, but… Yeah."

"Look, I'm only doing this because it'd reflect badly on me to not help you."

"Ah," Shaojie nodded, "now there's the Naomi-chan we all know and love."

Naomi just turned and give him another not-smile of pain and misery. "If you so desire, I could just take him on my own and let you face the music."

"Hey now, let's not get too drastic, Shiranui-san! I'm goin'!" The boy paled, and grabbed unconscious guy's arm other arm. He then turned to his friend. "Hey, Taiji, you, uhh… you mind keeping this on the down-low? Somehow, I don't get the feeling that Kiyomi-sensei's gonna be thrilled if he finds out about this."

The blonde nodded. "Sure, no problem, man."

"Alright, let's go. Dude's not gonna get himself to the infirmary."

"By the way, Naomi-chan," Shaojie started, once they were out on the hallway, "do you remember what this guy's name was?"

Naomi paused and gave him a sheepish look. "No… I was actually kinda hoping you did."

* * *

"This again, huh?"

There was no wind there. No heat, no cold. Just gray. An endless landscape of gray land spread out as far as the eye could see.

And _man_ , was it getting old.

"Dude," Kei called out to the empty, stagnant sky. "I'm supposed to be in school right now. Can we just accept that I can't into swords and just let me go about my day? Please?"

To absolutely no one's surprise, he was met with silence, and a sword appeared before him.

Raking his hand through his hair, he defeatedly groaned, "What the hell," and grabbed the sword. He then performed a full turn and came face to face with his opponent. The Swordsman let the sword come to rest at his right shoulder and made a 'come at me' motion with his free hand.

"Look, how 'bout this—If you really feel that strongly about it, we could always reschedule, or something, yeah? Maybe do this twice in a row when I'm actually sleeping tonight?" No response came.

"Three times?" Once again, his opponent upheld his vow of silence.

"Okay, what about... Eight straight hours of nonstop kick-my-ass action? No?"

The swordsman shook his head in the negative.

"Bummer," he sighed. "Well, let's get to it."

And with that, they began.

Unlike last night, Kei's approach was more cautious. Simply charging forward without a care would get him nowhere. So instead, he advanced with a basic combination of slices, aimed at the swordsman head, chest, and legs.

As expected, all three his strikes were deflected, and the enemy countered with a strike of his own.

Kei blocked it, and once again, the sheer force of the blow send a jolt of pain throughout his whole body. That confirmed it; the swordsman was going all out again, meaning that Kei couldn't afford to meet his attacks head on.

As soon as he recovered from the block, Kei pushed forward once more, and the two of them clashed.

Even now, in their umpteenth battle, the skill gap between the two of them still astounded Kei.

—No, it was even more than just a gap. The difference Kei and the swordsman was a _chasm_. If the swordsman was a beast of prey—A tiger or a wolf—then Kei was just a rabbit in comparison.

"I see you're using Bonetti's defence against me, eh!?" the boy taunted as each of his attacks were parried, and he slowly began to be driven back. The swordsman made no reaction to his joke, and slapped aside a stab, leaving Kei open for a slice to the chest.

"Aah—!" The boy backed down and put his hand to his chest. Thankfully, the cut was shallow, but... it was still a wound, enough to slow him down, and he was already running out of breath. At the rate this was going, Kei would lose his momentum real hard, real fast.

In a moment of desperation, he rushed forward, catching another cut—This one to the right shoulder—and threw out a horizontal strike at his opponent's neck.

The swordsman simply leaned his head back, allowing the strike to pass him by, and retaliated, not with his sword, but with his bare hand.

The uppercut missed him by just a few centimeters, but it was still enough the make Kei flinch and reel back from the attack that had knocked him unconscious just a few minutes ago. It was then that he recognized that it had been meant as a silent insult. "Bet you think you're a real riot," he spat.

In response, the swordsman stabbed his sword into the ground and gave the boy a mocking bow. He then stood, and began his own offensive.

His opponent's sword swung around in wide, sweeping arcs, every single strike meant to kill. If there had been any doubt in Kei's mind that his enemy was no longer holding back, this onslaught dispelled it.

Despite his resolution to not block, Kei found himself with little choice but raise his blade to deflect those vicious attacks. Blow after blow rained down on him, and he knew that if this kept up, this fight would end the exact same way that it had last night. And so, as a swipe came to take his head, Kei abandoned blocking altogether and ducked.

The enemy's sword altered its path and came back around for another strike, and Kei dodged that one as well.

Then the next one, and the one after that.

With increasing speed, the boy began to bob and weave his way through the previously unbeatable barrage of steel.

He ducked under a wide slash and stepped to the side, putting him behind the swordsman. Just as Kei began to move in to attack, the enemy hopped out of reach and stood at a distance, waiting for the boy to come to him.

But Kei now knew didn't need to— _Shouldn't_ —go on the offensive. In a straight up, sword vs sword fight, Kei would lose ten times out of ten. So to have any chance for success, he needed to improvise and capitalize on the gaps within his enemy's attack, in order to—

That was when the swordsman pulled out a new trick, and Kei's whole plan shattered to pieces.

With a single mighty bound, the swordsman cleared the seven meters between the two of them. Anticipating an aerial attack, Kei ducked to the side—

But instead of attacking then, the enemy used his momentum in a different manner. Just before landing from his leap, the swordsman stabbed his hand into the ground, and using it as an anchor, rotated his entire body like a pinwheel of steel.

Kei just nearly avoided getting disemboweled by it, when the swordsman stopped spinning, leaned back on his haunches, and performed a front-flip.

Front-flip _s_.

 _Several_ front-flip _s_.

This all happened within the length of less than a second. Kei's eyes barely managed to see the sword flashing, but his body was simply not fast enough to react.

And so, before he managed to scream out the air in his lungs, before he could attempt to think of a way out, before his body was even able to twitch in response to the incoming attack—

The sword sank into his shoulder and sliced diagonally all the way through his chest, only coming to a stop at his hip.

And so, the gray world faded.


	4. The World in Its True Form: Part 3

Kei's eyes slowly creaked open, and stared at a plain white ceiling. As he rose with a yawn—which made his jaw briefly ache—he realized that he'd woken up in what looked like an infirmary cot, but the room he was in didn't look like an infirmary at all. It looked… well, interesting would be one way to put it. Eccentric was a bit closer to the mark. But straight up just _bizarre_ would be a perfect description for it.

The not-infirmary was littered with vials on most of the tables and desks, some of exuded faint smoke and fruity scents. Propped up at one corner of the room was a model skeleton, and several posters with pentagrams, hexagrams, and other outlandish symbols were on virtually every surface of the walls, giving him pause.

 _'Talk about taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque... How did I end up here?'_

From beyond the curtained partition, he heard a pair of voices. Leaning forward, Kei peeked through the curtain and saw two other students, one a girl with red hair, and the other, a guy with Orange-ish hair, sitting at a table in the middle of the room. Now that he got a good look at him, Kei realized that this was the very same dude who had knocked him out and damn near broken his jaw.

"...Looks like Edogawa still isn't here," the girl groaned. "Figures that he wouldn't be around when you actually need him."

"Just our luck, I guess." Fauxhawk plopped down on a chair and shrugged. "Anywho, what should we do about this guy? Do we wait for Edogawa-sensei, or stay here 'till he wakes up, or what?"

"I guess we should probably stick around for a while," the girl shrugged, leaning back on her chair. "That being said, we can't afford to miss out on the afternoon classes. Specially not on the first day."

Deciding to break his silence, Kei spoke up. "No need to wait on my account, guys, I'm already up."

The two flinched and looked at him in surprise, before Fauxhawk rushed over and bowed in apology. "Oh! Oh, man, dude, I'm so damn sorry about punching, man! Dude, I didn't know that you were walking inside, man, I—"

"Hey look, it's fine, uh…"

"Oh, right. My name is Shaojie Feng, nice to meet ya."

"Naomi Shiranui," the redhead spoke up with a nod. "Nice to meet you."

Kei nodded back to both of them. "Kei Kamiya. Nice to meet you guys too. Anyway, I'm fine, Feng-san. It doesn't really hurt anymore or nothing, so just forget about it, yeah?"

Feng looked ready to argue, but he backed down. "Well, if you say so."

"Still," Shiranui cut in, "you should wait here until the nurse comes by to check on you. Feng might have given you a concussion with that punch, or something."

"Did somebody ask for the nurse?" A voice drawled from just behind Feng and Shiranui, prompting all three students to jump in surprise.

Kei's breath caught in his throat.

An eerily casual, lazy drawl. Lifeless, roving eyes, hidden almost entirely behind opaque glasses. A sloppy slouch that bespoke complete exhaustion. A blank expression that does not change at all.

 _'No way...'_ Kei's body reflexively retreated as he contemplated the possibility. _'No way in hell... is he...?'_

Was this man... a pedophile?

"Hello, Zhang-kun, Miyamura-kun, and…" The nurse trailed off when his eyes landed on Kei. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Mr. Edogawa. Who are you, young man?" he said, rubbing at his neck with his right hand.

"Uh... I-I'm Kamiya. Nice to meet you, sensei."

"Kamiya-kun, eh? Nice to meet you too." Edogawa stepped around the three students and walked towards a desk at the corner of the room. "Well, what brings you three here? Were you perhaps planning to volunteer to sample one of my new concoctions?"

Shiranui quickly interjected before the man could continue on that train of thought. "No, not at all, sensei! Kamiya-kun here because he passed out during lunch, so we brought him to the infirmary" she said, turning and subtly winking at Kei.

"I see. And do you have any idea why you suddenly fainted, Umehara-kun?"

Kei briefly debated on whether he should go along with the redhead's story, then with a shrug, decided to play ball. "Oh, y'know… Uh, heatstroke."

"Heatstroke," the nurse asked, with a tone so flat that the question mark was audibly absent.

The boy nodded. "Yep. I was just feeling really hot and sweaty all of a sudden, and then, boom; I'm at the infirmary."

Edogawa looked at Kei with a bland, unimpressed gaze. You know, the kind that people usually wear when they go out shopping for a while, then return to find their car covered in pigeon crap. "So you're telling me that you suffered from heatstroke, inside a room-temperature building, in early April, at the very start of Spring, while it's four degrees outside."

Kei's gray eyes met Edogawa's opaque glasses, and gave him a deadpan "Yes."

"Well, I don't see why not," the man shrugged.

"That's right," Kei grinned, standing up from the cot. "But I'm completely fine now, so I should just head back to class, yeah?"

"Not so fast, I'll be the judge of that," Edogawa said as his hand snapped forward and seized the boy's wrist. "Don't worry, I'll just give you a quick look-over and send you back before the lunch period is over."

Kei sent a pleading look to his classmates. Edogawa followed his gaze, and looked at the two as if he had just noticed them for the first time. "Oh, are you two still here?"

Shiranui opened her mouth to speak, but Feng beat her to the punch, laying a hand on her shoulder. "Ah yeah, sensei, we're just sticking around so we can walk Kamiya-kun back to class. I- if that's alright with you," he added, shooting the girl an apologetic look.

"That's quite alright, Teng-kun," he said, gesturing at the table. "You and Mirai-kun can just sit and wait if you want."

The other two students did so, the redhead glaring daggers at Feng all the while.

"Now then," Edogawa began, still rubbing at his neck with one hand— _'Seriously, did somebody put superglue in this guy's hand or something?'_ —and pulling a pen light from a cabinet with the other. "Look straight at this light, Kamiki-kun."

"That's Kamiya, sensei," Kei corrected.

The nurse nodded. "That's what I said, Kazama-kun."

"Wha- How does that even—Let's just get this over with, yeah?" He sighed, and did as the man asked.

"Alright, your eyes seem to be fine. Now, nod your head up and down a few times, then…"

After running through a basic check up, Edogawa simply stared at him for a while, before saying, "Interesting…"

"What?"

"There doesn't seem to be any form of excessive heat. In fact, it seems that you are completely fine." Edogawa scratched at his beard and looked pensively off to the side. "...Which could only mean one thing…"

Kei furrowed his brow and leaned in. "And that would be...?"

Feng and Shiranui too perked up, listening with interest.

"Hmm…" the nurse turned back towards Kei, his mouth set into a thin line, and spoke: "I have no idea whatsoever."

All three teenagers regarded him with their best impression of Keanu Reeves.

"Well then, you seem to be fine," Edogawa said, cracking his knuckles, and returning his instruments back to the cabinet. "You three can go and head back to class. Lunch break's almost over."

The three students hurriedly bolted out of the infirmary and into the first floor hallway, sharing a mutual sigh of relief at their escape. Then almost immediately, Shiranui rounded on Feng, cornering him against the wall. "Okay, what the hell was that about?"

"What was what?"

"Don't play dumb, Feng! Why did you make us stay in there?"

"Cool it, Naomi-chan, I didn't wanna leave Kamiya in there all alone," the Chinese boy said, putting his hands up in surrender. "Edogawa-sensei might have freaked him out a lot, you know?"

"What, you mean even more than he already did?" Kei asked with a skeptical look.

"Well, he doesn't do anything bad, really, but he's super weird. He might have offered you some lessons on Wiccan, or made you drink one of his 'remedial potions,'" Feng said, making very exaggerated air quotes. "I'm telling you man, those things are definitely not WHO approved."

"You didn't need to involve me in it," Shiranui sighed as backed down and checked her watch. "I'm heading back to class. Try not to run into any more accidents, Kamiya-kun," she added to Kei as she walked away.

Kei gave the redhead's retreating form a sidelong glance as he turned to the other boy. "What's with her?"

Feng gave him a nonchalant shrug. "Ah, that's just Naomi-chan being herself. Don't take her at face level. Anywho," he said, glancing at his phone, "we oughtta head back, too. Kiyomi-sensei's the kind that really gets on your ass when you're late."

* * *

The last hour of school was blessedly painless. No sudden extra hour of class, no running into weird students and/or faculty members, and no more people punching him out of nowhere. All was well.

Despite the chilly weather, the day was cloudless and bright, and Gekkoukan's students exited the school with a generally cheery mood. Kei walked amongst the crowd, almost anonymous in the mass of students laughing and joking with their classmates, as they all made their ways home.

As he approached the front gates, Kei heard someone call out to him. "Yo, Kamiya-kun, wait up!"

Turning, he saw Feng walking towards him. "Oh, hey, Feng-han," he greeted with a nod. "You're, uh, gonna keep your hands to yourself this time, yeah?"

The Chinese boy faltered in his step, and winced in embarrassment. "Oh, uh…"

"Bad joke, forget it," Kei said with a shrug. "So, what's up?"

"You're heading home, right? Wanna hang out for a while?"

"Huh?" Kei barely managed to contain his surprise. "What for?"

"Hey, just think of it as a way of saying sorry. Y'know," Feng leaned in with a conspiratorial tone, "for punching you back there. Hell, you even covered for me even when you didn't have to, so I really owe you one, man."

Ah, now it made sense. A way of apologizing and saying thanks at the same time. Regardless, he shook his head in response. "Nah, that's alright. I gotta get going."

"Aww, you sure?" Feng said with a disappointed frown. "Just think about, dude. We could head over to the mall, they've got this huge arcade there, and..." he trailed off as his eyes landed on the cast covering Kei's arm, and he realized his faux pas.

A brief moment of uneasy silence passed between the two of them.

Feng scratched awkwardly at his chin. "...You any good at House of the Dead?" He finished lamely.

"Right," Kei said, running his hand through his hair. "I'm, uh, just gonna head back now. See ya Monday, Feng-han."

"Uh, yeah, sure. See you, Kamiya-kun," he said, as the other boy walked back into the crowd.

* * *

"...This marks the third disappearance in Nagoya, and the seventh overall that has occurred in Chūkyō since January." A grim look came over the news anchor's pretty features as she spoke. "Even though these incidents are so far localized entirely within the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area, parents are advised to watch over their children at all possible times, and to not allow them near strange individuals." The seriousness in her face faded as quickly as it had come, and her expression returned to normal.

"In other news, US President Michael Wilson has announced his intention to—"

She was cutoff mid-sentence when the channel switched, and he came across a re-run of _Train Man_.

He switched the channel again. This time it was a showing of the last _Bayside Shakedown_ movie. The really crappy one.

Switch.

The Hero Yoshihiko, season one.

"Eh, good enough," Doi Soma muttered as he threw the remote onto the table and sprawled himself on the couch.

About halfway through the first episode, the door to the apartment opened and he heard his cousin enter the apartment exhaling a sigh of relief.

"Yo," Soma greeted, as Kei stood at the genkan and took off his shoes.

The kid walked around the couch and plopped down next to him. "Hey, Soma."

"What, no _'tadaima?'_ " He asked with a grin.

"Hey, I'm just staying here 'till the dorm situation's figured out, remember?"

"I remember. Regardless; _'okaeri,'_ " he said with a yawn. He moved his legs out of the way, to give the kid more room to sit. "Anyhow, you sure took your time getting here. Were you hanging out with some friends, Kei-kun?"

Kei shook his head. "Nah, I was just... exploring the city a bit. Seeing the sights, getting familiar with it and all that, yeah?"

"Sure, sure," Soma nodded. He switched the channel again, and this time ended up with some quiz show. He then playfully nudged Kei in the side with his foot. "You got lost, didn't you?"

The kid looked flustered for a moment, before running his hand through his hair and slumping back. "Super lost," he admitted with a sigh.

"Why am I not surprised… So, where'd you end up?"

"Well, I took the wrong bus and wound up at the south end of Port Island."

"Oh. Well that sucks, but it doesn't sound—"

"Then I took the right bus," Kei continued, "and got off at the right stop... And then I went in the complete opposite direction."

"Uh-huh. So where did that take you?"

"Well…" A small blush appeared across his cheeks, and he glanced away as he muttered, "I might have accidentally walked into the red light district." He looked back at Soma and groaned, "Just go ahead and yuck it up, you tool."

And yuck it up he did.

"H-hey, I'm sorry, man," he gasped out in between his laughter. "It's just—How does anyone fuck up that bad, dude? S-so, how'd you even find your way back here, anyway?

In response, Kei took out his cell phone and gave him a slight grin. "Even if they're trying to steal all our info and go full 'Big Brother' on us, Google Maps is a freaking life saver."

He let out"I'm surprised you didn't screw up yesterday and get on a train all the way to Kyushu, or something."

"Hey, I'm not that bad."

"Dude, you literally got lost in a straight hallway once."

A small half smile played Kei's lips as he argued back. "Cut me some slack, I was ten and that hallway was super long! Anyone couldda gotten lost in there!"

"That right?" Soma smirked back at the kid. "Apparently Megumi-chan managed well enough." He realized he'd made a mistake the moment he finished the sentence. As quickly as it had come, Kei's smile packed its bags and fucked off. He glanced away and muttered a small, "I guess."

Soma quickly began to apologize. "Sorry, Kei-kun, I—"

The kid gave him a dismissive wave. "It's fine, Soma. Don't worry about it." And with that, the two just sat watching the tv, but not quite paying it attention.

After several long minutes of channel surfing in awkward silence, his cousin finally spoke up again. "So, what's the word with in the dorm? How much longer's it gonna take?"

"Aww, you're bored of me already, Kei-kun?" Soma whined, sniffling and exaggerating a pout. "Is that how you treat your dear cousin? Who happens to be generously letting you crash at his place? Without making you pay for rent?"

"Dude, I'm just asking, no need to get so melodramatic."

"Right, right… Anyway, I just got word from the people handling the dorm a little while ago. They're just getting the paperwork through, so you should be able to move in soon." He thoughtfully scratched his chin, then added, "Soon-ish."

Kei gave him an askance look. "Not exactly what I'd call reassuring, buddy."

"I mean—Tomorrow's Sunday, and I don't think anyone's gonna be working then," he clarified. "Meaning the paperwork might go through on Monday, so... they should be ready 'round Tuesday. Or Thursday, tops. Maybe."

"Just my luck, then," the kid sighed.

"Hey, look on the bright side," Soma said nudging his side again, "you get to hang out with me 'till then!"

His cousin rolled his eyes and let out an easy chuckle. "Oh goodie. Maybe we can spend the night watching movies, painting our nails and talking about boys."

Soma guffawed back. "That's the spirit, sistah!"

Just at that moment, Soma's phone rang. He grabbed it off the table with an irritated groan, and accepted the call. "Soma speaking."

"Soma, do you have a minute?"

His eyes nearly bulged out of his head when the woman on the other end spoke. "It's a call from work!" he told the kid, as he jumped off the couch and rushed towards his room. Once alone, he stood ramrod straight and took on a more proper tone as he addressed the caller.

"Hey, hi! Sorry about that, miss!" He almost bowed, before remembering that she wouldn't be able to see that through the phone. "What can I do for you?" 'Please, oh God, please don't ask about the debt,' he silently prayed to himself. But what the woman asked completely threw him for a loop.

"Is your cousin there with you?"

"O-oh, Kei? Yeah, he just got back from school a little while ago. He's a second year, in Kiyomi's class," he quickly added. _'Divert the attention, divert the attention, divert the attention!'_

The woman hummed in acknowledgment. "Have you spoken to him anything about the orientation?"

"I—No, but he has been asking about it. He doesn't show it, but I get the feeling he's getting impatient about, too."

"Yeah," she said with a sympathetic tone, "that's the usual reaction. Regardless, I've got good news."

He frowned and quirked his brow. "Now... when you say good news, do you mean that as _actual_ good news, or is it 'good news' for people who love bad news?"

"Oh? Did I just hear you volunteer to fill out this week's exercise reports, Soma-kun?"

"N-no, ma'am. Sorry ma'am."

"Good!" she chirped. "Then be a dear and listen; I've had time to re-schedule, and we should be able to have a briefing for him on Tuesday, after school."

"Tuesday? That's a bit late, isn't it?"

"Sorry, it can't be helped," she heaved a heavy sigh. "Akihiko-san's been running me ragged lately, what with the team placements coming up tomorrow."

"Hey, I hear you." _'And now, time to serenely skedaddle—!'_

"By the way," she added, just before he was about to hang up, "I heard that you've been making bets with a certain somebody."

 _'Fuck! So close!'_ "Yeah," he cringed, "just... tell him I'll have the cash ready for him on Friday."

"Wednesday," she stated.

"...Thursday?" Soma tried, with a weak tone.

" _Wednesday_ ," the woman repeated, a bit more firmly.

"Wednesday," he relented.

"Good!" she chirped again. "And don't let me hear about you and Shinpai gambling again, got it, Soma?"

"Don't need to tell me twice, Kotone-san..."


	5. The World in Its True Form: Part 4

Brushing a strand of blonde hair out of her eyes, Jeanne quietly shut the door to her room, before quietly closing her eyes and holding her breath. Nothing but silence greeted her ears. She then hunched over and lit the candlestick in her hand, lighting the hall with its dim orange glow.

"Today's the day," she whispered, reaffirming her will as she took the first step forward.

Her heart beat with both apprehension and excitement as she slowly snuck through the halls, careful to not step too heavily on the wooden floorboards as she passed by her parents' room.

Three more times she paused and listened, before she finally reached her sister's room. Catherine looked so peaceful as she slept now, tucked away in her blankets and breathing softly. She was fifteen, just a year younger than Jeanne herself, but her small frame and height had always made her look much younger. She stood there, simply observing her sister's sleeping form for some time, and looking back on simpler days.

The days when her father had first taught her how to ride a horse, the days running through the house alongside Catherine, shrieking with delight as their brothers chased them. She remembered days spent beneath the warmth of the sun, days of spinning wool by her mother's side. She remembered the day when Domrémy was burnt to the ground. When bold Jean and shy Pierre, along with many other young men of the village, left behind their old lives and families to join the Duke's army.

And she remembered the day when the Lord's messengers came to her and spoke in their beautiful hymns.

She pulled away from Catherine's side with a sigh.

It pained her to part like this, stealing away from her home in the dead of night. She longed to bid a proper farewell to her sister and to her brother Jacquemin, and to her mother and father. God... She could only imagine how they would react come morning, only to find an empty room. What would they think? That she hated them? That she would rather take her chances alone in the war-torn countryside than spend another day in their house? Just thinking about it made her heart ache...

But she had spent enough time watching over Catherine. Time was of the essence, and she needed to reach Vaucouleurs by dawn.

With a final wistful sigh, Jeanne kissed her sister's brow and placed the letter she had written beneath the girl's pillow. "Au revoir," she whispered, as she exited Catherine's room and softly closed the door. _Until we meet again._

Again the girl crept through the house, descending the stairs, then leaving through the front door. It was just an hour after midnight, and the crescent moon hung high in the starry sky. She walked towards the stables at a more relaxed pace now that she was out in the open, with the moonlight illuminating her way.

Jeanne had been planning this night for almost a year now. In her satchel she had packed all she would need for the journey to come; A change of men's clothes much like the ones she wore now, enough food to last her a week, and a dagger. It wasn't much, but she knew it was all she would need.

If she mounted up quickly and kept an even pace, she should be able to cover the four leagues between Domrémy and Vaucouleurs in a matter of hours. She would need to take care, however, for whatever highwaymen and deserters may be prowling on the roads.

When Pierre and Jean departed for the war, they had both taken their horses with them, leaving the stables with only five. Two which her father used for general labor in her family's homestead, two of which belonged to him and Jacquemin, and Maggie, her mare.

Setting the candle down on the floor, far from any stray bits of hay, Jeanne roused Maggie from her sleep and began to set up her saddle.

"Maggie," she groaned, as the horse refused to stay still. "Maggie, please, just let me put on the saddle!"

The mare just snorted in response to her pleas.

"Perhaps you should try stroking her neck," someone said from behind her. "She does seem to love that."

With a gasp, the girl whirled towards the voice, and came face to face with the last person she wanted to see. "Father!?"

"Bonsoir, Jeanne," her father, Jacques, replied as he set his lamp down. "Did I interrupt something?" Tall and brawny, with blue eyes and fair hair, her father had always been her hero. Despite his low birth, Jacques D'arc was a rather wise man, even more so than many so called scholars. He had a lot to say of just about everything, from old Greek tales to the details of voyages to far-off lands. And at times of distress, his eyes always burned with determination, as if he knew exactly what he needed to do to resolve any situation.

"I…" She cast her eyes towards the ground, her cheeks burning hot with shame. "I'm leaving, father."

"I can see that. Off to the war, then?"

"What? How did you—!?"

"I'm not a fool, Jeanne. I know. I've known for a long time."

She kept her gaze firmly to the ground, not daring to meet his eyes. "Then… I… I have to go. I—"

"Then go."

"W-what?"

"Jeanne." Despite his calm, even tone, Jeanne could see the tension in her father's eyes as he spoke. "I don't know why it is that you wish to participate in this. And I don't know if I'll ever see you alive after this. By God, I wish I could keep you here, but I know I can't. There's absolutely nothing I can say or do that will stop you… So the least I can do is give you my blessing, and give you these gifts, so that they may protect you." He took the cloth-wrapped bundle from under his arm and placed it in her hands. The girl gave him a confused look, before unwrapping the bundle and nearly dropping it with a gasp.

What she held in her hands was a one-handed sword. Its curved blade was long and thin, ending in a sharp point. The crossguard was oddly shaped, however, unlike any she'd ever seen before. It extended downwards from the top of the hilt to the pommel, forming a sort of shell that could protect the wielder's sword hand.

"I... I can't take this," she whispered.

"Would you rather travel alone and unarmed in the middle of the night?" His voice took on a serious edge that he rarely ever displayed. "I gifted a sword to Jean when he left, and one to Pierre as well. Please, Jeanne, take it."

She hesitated for a moment, before nodding and strapping the scabbard to her side.

No more words were spoken as the man stepped towards Maggie and began saddling her.

She watched him work in silence for a few minutes before she found herself speaking. "Why?"

He turned and raised an eyebrow.

"Why... Why are you doing this?" She elaborated, "why aren't you trying to stop me?"

He chuckled humorlessly. "What am I to do? Would you prefer it if I married you off to some merchant's boy? Or perhaps I could lock you away in your room until your madness is gone." He shook his head with a forlorn sigh. "There's nothing I could do or say that can stop you, is there?"

Silence was her answer.

He sighed again, stooping down to pick up the lamp. "Jeanne... just where is it that you plan to go? Jean is in Burgundy—"

"I'm not going to Jean," she interrupted.

Her father furrowed his brow for a moment, before his eyes suddenly widened. " _Pierre!?_ By God, Jeanne, Orleans in under siege!"

She shook her head. "That's not it either."

"Then where...?"

"To Vaucouleurs. From there, I will go to Chinon."

"Chinon? For what purpose?"

She smiled but did not respond, instead walking around him and mounting up on her horse. "I have to go now, père. Catherine, Jacquemin and Mother... please, tell them..."

"Don't worry," he nodded. "I'll tell them." He grabbed hold of Maggie's reins and led them outside the stable. "This is it," he announced. Then suddenly, his hand reached out to grasp hers, and his eyes met hers. "Jeanne... Please come back to us."

She squeezed his hand back. "I will. I swear I will."

He nodded back. "Then go."

With her father's gift and blessing, Jeanne mounted up and rode away.

Just a short distance away from the main road, she stopped and turned to look back at her home, illuminated by the full moon. The house she had grown up in was not a particularly impressive building. Only two stories high, and with a slanted roof, it was a far cry from any of the grand castles or châteaux of nobility, but it was home regardless. This was where she and her siblings had been born. This was where they had been raised. This was where she had received her divine mission.

And now, she would leave it behind —like Jean and Pierre, like the dozens of young men who had gone alongside them— in order to protect it all.

"Today's the day," she whispered again. With one last look at the house, Jeanne turned back towards the road and rode away, never to return.

* * *

April 7th, 2014

Naomi's blue eyes opened, as she lifted her head from her pillow with a sleepy yawn. "That's odd," she muttered to herself. "I've never seen that one before..." Yawning again, the girl checked the clock on her nightstand and grimaced when she saw that it was six-twenty, a whole half-hour before her alarm was supposed to ring.

'Oh well,' she thought to herself, might as well not let the extra time go to waste.'

Naomi Shiranui hopped out of her bed, adjusting her red hair into a ponytail to keep it from getting into her vision. She reached for her phone and set a countdown timer for thirty minutes. She then stood in the center of her room stretching her neck with audible pops a few times before speaking aloud, "Well, it's still morning, so I shouldn't go overboard. Three sets should be alright."

And with that, she let herself tip forward, put her hands beneath her and began her first set of push ups.

After fifteen reps, she switched to doing a set of sit ups, also fifteen reps, after which she moved on to squats and planks, before starting from the top with fifteen more push ups.

Naomi repeated this process two more times and then began performing static stretches for the next ten minutes. By the time she finished, the alarm she had set rung, indicating that it was already six-fifty.

With her morning exercises done, the girl stepped into the bathroom to clean herself up before preparing for the day.

Coming out after a shower, the girl began to dress herself in casual clothes; A warm set of pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a leather jacket. It was a cold day, cold enough she could even see her own breath indoors, so it was only prudent that she dress warmly. She undid her hair from the ponytail it was in and allowed it to freely fall all the way down to her shoulders.

Satisfied with her appearance, Naomi exited her room and stepped out into the living room and called out, "Good morning, mother! I'm up!" Silence greeted her back. "Ah... Mama's probably left for work already, then," the girl sighed to herself. _'That is, if she even came home at all last night,'_ she did not add. Sure enough, the western-styled apartment she and her mother lived in was empty save for herself.

Regardless, Naomi couldn't find it in herself to fault her mother for her diligence. As an expert in both psychology and psychometrics, her work was highly valuable to the Organization. It was only natural that so much of her time would consumed by her it.

'Still...' She sighed again as she walked into the kitchen and prepared a quick breakfast of miso soup and tamagoyaki.

As she ate, Naomi glanced over at the clock and found herself disappointed to see that it was barely half-past seven. "The meeting's at ten... Maybe I woke up too early? Ah well, a couple hours isn't much of a wait." She'd been eagerly awaiting this day for almost a year now. Soon, months upon months of constant training, drilling and examinations would come to bear fruit. An excited grin spread across her lips. "Who knows? They might even make a leader."

The image was clear in Naomi's mind. She saw herself standing tall and strong, alongside her friends and comrades. She almost giggled at the thought.

After washing the plates and utensils she'd used for breakfast, the girl put on her shoes and exited the apartment complex. Despite the unusual chill for an April morning, the day was still bright and sunny, with not a single cloud to be seen in the sky. A perfect setting for the first day of the rest of her life.

A determined look settled across Naomi Shiranui's features as she looked up at the clear morning sky. "This is it, Jeanne. Today's the day."

* * *

As she made her way towards Port Island, Naomi couldn't help but observe her surroundings and reflect on what an unusual city Iwatodai was. Despite being located in the Kantō region, the city had significant French historical and cultural roots. So much so, in fact, that there was a number of old families of French decent dating back several generations, along with the other expatriates who occasionally moved in. Furthermore, unlike the majority of Japanese cities, where streets were almost always simply numbered, every street in Iwatodai had an individual name written in French.

She wasn't really sure what the story behind it all was, but she still found it impressive that the local French community had not only survived, but thrived, despite Japan's history of xenophobia.

She was halfway through the Moonlight Bridge—Called the _'Pont léger de lune'_ in French—when someone called out to her. "Hey! Mornin', Naomi-chan!"

Naomi turned and nodded back at the boy who greeted her. "Good morning, Feng-kun."

The boy wore a warm black and yellow jacket, dark jeans, and a pair of expensive-looking sneakers, which were probably exported from overseas. Most notably, he had decided to go against common sense and didn't wear a hat, putting his bright fauxhawk in display for all the world to see. "Say, you look like you're in a good mood, Naomi-chan," he classmate said, as he caught up and fell in step beside her.

"Do I? Well, yeah… I'm just pretty excited about today."

"Yeah, me too!" He chuckled with a broad, almost infectious grin. "You've been a trainee for about six months, too, right? Think we'll make the cut?"

"Definitely." She couldn't help but smile back. "I know I'm gonna make it to one of the teams. You, though… Can't say I'm so sure, Feng."

"Damn, Naomi-chan," he said, laying a hand to his heart. "You're cold!"

"Good morning, Naomi-chan! Good morning, Shaojie-kun!" A third voice called out from behind them. An auburn-haired girl strode up next to them with a beaming smile. She was about an inch or so taller than Naomi, and wore a knit cap over her loose hair, along with a coat, jeans, and boots.

"Good morning, Sayaka-chan," Naomi greeted back.

Feng's greeting was much more enthusiastic. "S-sayaka-chan! Ah, hey, mornin'!" He declared, his grin somehow growing even wider than it had previously been. "You, uh, you psyched for the placements, too?"

"Mhmm! ...Say, Shaojie-kun, I heard that you got into a fight yesterday." Sayaka put her hands on her hips, her green eyes narrowing in a mock glare. "What's that about?"

A small blush settled over the Chinese boy's face as he scratched his neck. "Oh, uh… Well, it wasn't really a fight. I was just messing around, and then this guy—one of our class's transfers—walked in, and… uh, I accidentally... punched him...?"

Sayaka gaped at him. "You got into a fight with a transfer student!?"

"Wha- No! It was an accident, Sayaka-chan! I even brought the guy to the infirmary and apologized, and everything!"

The girl sighed and hugged one of his arms, prompting a bright blush to light up Feng's face. "Jeez, Shaojie-kun, it's not cool to just go around throwing punches."

"R-right. Sorry 'bout that, S-sayaka-chan."

They talking amongst themselves as they made their way towards the east coast of Port Island, eventually coming to a stop in front of the Headquarters. Standing at thirty stories in height, the building was easily the tallest structure on Tatsumi Port Island, though not quite as tall as the skyscrapers in the mainland. At a glance, most people probably would never think that this particular building was easily the most important location in all of the city.

"Well, this is it," Naomi said, turning to the other two.

They both nodded and followed her through the lobby. "Feng-kun, I hope you didn't forget your ID card again," Naomi said as they walked towards the receptionist.

"Come on, Naomi-chan, it was one time! Get off my back already!"

After flashing their IDs and making their way into the elevator, Naomi took a moment to heave out a sigh, while Feng and Sayaka continued chatting. Her heart beat with both excitement and apprehension as the elevator ascended towards the fifteenth floor. Her mind raced as she imagined what her team would be like. Would she be the strongest? Would they be members of different classes, or only her classmates? If so, who would they be?

Naomi briefly glanced at Feng, who was animatedly recounting some story to Sayaka. Even if he wasn't the smartest person, the boy was definitely one of the best trainees she'd seen. He'd be a welcome addition to her team. And who knew? Maybe he could learn to act more seriously with some experience as an Operative.

"...And then Miura boosted off Ishiwatari's back and dunked the crap out of it! It was awesome!"

 _'Pfft, yeah, wishful thinking.'_

Her thoughts then turned to Sayaka. As a healer who could also double as a Navigator, she would be invaluable to any team lucky enough to have her. Naomi sincerely hoped that teams weren't restricted to only classmates. It'd be nice to be on a team alongside her friend.

"Naomi-chan?" the other girl's voice brought her out of her thoughts. "We're already here. Aren't you coming?"

Indeed, the elevator had finally stopped and opened into the fifteenth floor. Naomi nodded at Sayaka with an apologetic smile. "Right, sorry. Let's go, Sayaka-chan, Feng-kun." The three of them walked down the hall and towards the open doors near the end. She could already see about a dozen or so other trainees inside the small conference hall, sitting and talking as they waited for everyone else to arrive.

And as they walked inside, Naomi steeled herself and silently repeated the mantra in her mind: _'Today's the day.'_


	6. The World in Its True Form: Part 5

Before we kick this one off, I should probably take an L and admit that trying to post this story in big chunks was a pretty shit plan. See, the idea was to write small and rapid updates on Spacebattles and Archive of Our Own, then piling them together into a single large chapter and posting that here. I belatedly realized that there were two tiny problems with that; first, I was kicked right in the dick with a pretty nasty case of writer's block, which kinda shot down the 'rapid updates' plan. Second, I never considered that gigantic, twenty-thousand word chapters may be considered a turn off, until a friend of mine slapped me over the head and called me out on it.

So, sorry.

Now that that's out in the air, I'll try my best to get into a proper rhythm for writing this story and not fall off the radar for eight months, and post the rest of this episode in a format that isn't completely fucked.

Anywho, last time around, Caramba23451 left a review;

Just a side note: Moonlight bridge is actually not "Pont léger de lune" in french *cringes*. It's actually "Pont Clair-de-Lune" (lit. Light of the moon or Brightness of the moon if you want to take every single word litterally)

Other than that, great read. Really fun. I usually don't read fics with OCs but I'm really interested in this one. Kudos. F&F.

Huh, that right? I actually got the name from looking a high-res image of Persona 3's map. If you google search for a map of Iwatodai, you'll see that many areas of the map do indeed have French names. I saw this and decided to roll with it, fluffing it so that French culture has a large influence on the city, similarly to how the Dutch were influential in Nagasaki during the seventeenth century.

Regardless, thanks a lot for the review, dude! I'm really glad to hear you gave this story a shot.

With all that said and done, let's get back to the show.

* * *

The shrill whistle in the air was his only warning, prompting Kei to duck under the incoming slash just before his head could get lopped off.

The next strike came from above, a diagonal slice meant to cleave through him. He wasn't fast enough to dodge out of its way, not completely, so he did the next best thing, and put his blade up to block while he sidestepped.

The force of the impact nearly made him fall, but Kei managed to right himself just in time to watch the enemy zooming in on him with absurd speed, sword poised in front of him, ready to turn the boy into a shish kebab. The boy let out tiny yelp as he pushed himself back, letting himself fall on his ass, while the sword passed where his head had _just_ been.

Right behind him, the swordsman let the momentum from his missed _Stinger_ die out before turning and leaning on his sword, granting Kei the courtesy of waiting while he got back up.

As Kei stood on shaky legs, the swordsman tilted his head, his silence implying a question. _Anything funny to say, wise guy?_

"I, Uh... You... Ahh..." Kei tried a few more times, before shaking his head. "Nope, sorry. Can't think of anything clever to say."

His enemy shrugged again, before charging back into the fray.

Kei ducked again under a horizontal swipe, back-stepped away from a kick, and just barely managed to roll away when the swordsman tried his crazy front flip.

Five minutes. At five whole minutes, tonight's duel was the longest Kei had survived against the swordsman. Though, to be honest, calling it a "duel" was an overstatement. It was more of a chase, a very one-sided, very lethal, game of cat and mouse. And in those five minutes, Kei hadn't managed to land a single hit, though not for lack of trying. He'd realized that trying to strike back was a fool's errand, so he decided to switch it up; His strategy now consisted entirely of dodging the enemy's attacks, waiting for an opening.

He felt as if he had become familiar with the swordsman's fighting style now. The attacks, the angles, his aggressive behavior... Slowly, it all started to become natural for him, like some sort of instinct that had been forcibly beaten into his head after countless battles.

But even with that extra edge, tonight's duel wasn't easier in the slightest. He still misjudged just what the enemy would do at times, where the next attack would come from, and he still fell for feints. The handful of attacks that had been able to connect already left Kei in pretty rough shape, not to mention that he was feeling pretty winded after just five minutes of constant dodging.

Trying to turn this into a battle of attrition was a mistake—A mistake he quickly began to pay for.

The next attack was aimed at his right leg, Kei could practically see it coming from a mile away. But even though his eyes could follow it clearly, his body simply couldn't respond fast enough. He tried to step out of its range, but the slice still managed to tear through his thigh. Tears blurred his vision as he found his footing, with his teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.

His opponent didn't give him a single moment to recover, rushing in once again with an overhead swing. Clumsily, Kei tried to duck away, but the wound on his leg was too much of a hindrance, causing him to trip—

"Gah! Aargh!"

—And land on his broken left arm. The sheer pain from his arm nearly made him pass out, but someway, somehow, Kei managed to soldier through it. With a low snarl, he ignored the searing pain and pushed himself onto his feet, bringing his sword in front of him and...

He stared blankly at his bare hand, which was most definitely not holding anything at all.

 _'...Wait, where—?'_

With a soft _thud_ , the sword landed blade-first behind him, impaling itself on the ground. It took him a split second to process this and begin to scramble for the sword, but by then it was already too late. The enemy had already plucked his fallen weapon from the ground, and began analyzing it with mock interest for a moment. He then carelessly tossed it over his shoulder and turned his attention back to Kei.

And just like that, he was back at square one. Some deep seated frustration bubbled up within Kei as he clenched his fist. He had no real idea what he was thinking, that maybe if he kept on fighting, trying to figure out new tactics, he'd eventually be able to succeed. That the insurmountable wall that was the swordsman would break one day under his constant pressure.

But it was impossible, nothing short of a pipe dream. No matter how hard he tried, Kei would never be able to defeat the swordsman.

But even knowing that... he didn't want to give up, despite knowing there was nothing he could do. Somehow, he found himself unable to say the words "I quit." Instead, he sucked his teeth and glared defiantly at his invincible enemy. "I'll get you next time," he said, waiting for the silent taunt and finishing blow that would send him back into the waking world.

But it never came.

Instead, almost hesitantly, his opponent lowered the sword away from the boy. And then he said, **"This just isn't working out."**

For a moment, Kei's mind completely ceased working. At last, after over two weeks of silent battle, his enemy had spoken. The boy stared in sheer incomprehension for several long minutes before his mouth managed to stammer out, "Y-you... can talk...?"

The swordsman shook his head, the movement barely visible against the gray landscape. Even though Kei couldn't see his eyes, he still could feel their judging gaze on him. **"We're running out of time, and you still don't remember my name,"** he growled out in a terse, frustrated tone, very unsuited to his usual nonchalant body language. **"I can't keep protecting you forever."**

"Time? Protecting me?" Just what was it that he was running out of time for? How was he being protected? None of it made any sense. "What the hell are you talking about...? Who even are you?!"

And then suddenly, he was right there next to Kei, somehow clearing the distance between the two of them in the blink of an eye. **"Listen to me,"** the swordsman whispered, **"you need to remember. If you want to survive, if you want to know the reason..."**

"—Ugh!" A sharp pain spread across his chest. Kei hadn't even seen it coming. One moment the sword was at the swordsman's side, and the next it was embedded in his chest, piercing his sternum.

Just before his conscious blacked out, the swordsman grasped his shoulder and pulled him close. **"You need to stop running and** ** _remember_** **."**

And the gray world faded.

* * *

April 6th, 2014

Kei awoke with a grunt, placing a hand on his aching chest.

 _'Wait, what?'_

"It... still hurts?" That... that wasn't normal. Usually, all the injuries he gained in his not-dreams never carried over at all. Which was pretty fortunate, considering that being down one arm was already enough of a pain. Nervously, Kei lifted up his shirt, and to his immense relief his chest was completely intact. But that didn't erase the fact that he still felt the dull throb where he had just been stabbed.

"What changed?" he muttered. "Why does it hurt?"

"What hurts?" a voice asked from beside him.

Kei's neck snapped upwards so fast he almost got whiplash. Sitting on the other couch was Soma, who watched him with an amused look as he ate breakfast. "W-whoa, Soma! Wha—When'd you get here?"

His cousin rolled his eyes and took another bite of his food. "I live here, doofus. So, you were saying something about stuff hurting?"

"Ah... It's nothing, don't worry about it," the boy said, hopping off the futon and heading towards the bathroom.

"You sure? Your mom would kill me if it turns out you have a heart attack or something."

"Geez, Soma, it's not like I'm just gonna drop dead outta the blue, yeah?" And with that he opened up the door to the... supply closet...? "Uh..."

"Bathroom's behind you," Soma called out from his spot on the couch.

"R-right. I knew that."

After brushing his teeth and taking a shower, Kei joined his cousin for breakfast ("Want some butaniku?" "Sure, thanks.") and watched some foreign show about police investigators on TV.

After watching for a few minutes, Soma suddenly bolted up from his seat. "Whoa, crap! It's ten already?!"

"What's up, you got somewhere to be?"

"Yeah, man! I'm heading to work!" he said, rushing towards his room to change from his pajamas and into his work clothes.

As his cousin struggled to get dressed, Kei closed his eyes and leaned back into the couch, his hand idly tapping at his chest.

Unbidden, memories of last night's fight came to him. _''You need to remember..."_ What did that even mean? What was he supposed to remember? Something that vague and random didn't do anything to spur his memory in the slightest. Hell, now that he thought about it... hadn't he heard those words before, on the day that he'd arrived? The swordsman might as well have told Kei to find the cure for cancer, or something.

Then his mind flitted back home. And to why he'd agreed to come to Iwatodai in the first place—To find out what had happened back in his home town of Toyono. He'd been promised answers, on the condition that he leave everything behind and show up to this unfamiliar city on the other end of the country. He agreed, he came, and he was still no closer to finding the truth.

With a sigh, the boy opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling.

If nothing else, he at least wanted some sort of closure. To understand why—

"Yo, Kei-kun!" The sudden sound of his cousin's voice— _Right next to his ear_ —broke Kei out of his introspection. He jerked and saw Soma standing over him, dressed in a very messy and haphazard business suit. "Finally got your attention?"

"Ah, sorry, I was kinda thinking," Kei said.

"So you didn't catch the end of the show? Damn shame," Soma grumbled, then began fiddling with his tie. "Hey, you know how tie one of these?"

"Nah. Besides," the boy tapped at his cast. "Can't really do it with just the one hand."

"Oh, right. Duh." He continued to struggle with the tie for a few more minutes before eventually giving up on it altogether.

Kei leaned back on the couch, staring again at the ceiling until the words slipped from his lips. "Why am I here, Soma?"

His cousin, who was trying to tidy his olive hair, paused and turned towards him. "Huh?"

The boy shook his head. "No, lemme rephrase that—I know why _I_ wanted to come, but... The other day, you said that you knew why I was invited here to Iwatodai, yeah?"

"I did. I also said that you'd have to wait to find out, Kei-kun. There's... the stuff you're gonna find out, it's the kind of thing that's best left to professionals, you know?" He sat down next to the boy, throwing the tie over his shoulder. "Listen, I got the call yesterday. You just gotta wait 'till Tuesday—"

"I know!" At some point, Kei had jumped to his feet without even realizing it. A twinge of pain in his left arm brought him back from his sudden rage, and he unclenched the fist, sheepishly dropping his gaze to the floor. "Sorry, I'm just... I'm tired of just waiting for things to come to me, Soma. Ever since I woke up in the hospital, nothing's made any sense. Nobody's explaining what happened in Toyono, some suits just handed me a scholarship for no reason, now I'm here, and I still don't understand anything." The boy sighed and slowly sat back down. "Look, I get it—Tuesday's not that far off, but... Soma, just give me something to work with. Please."

"God..." His cousin sighed, scratching at his stubble before hesitantly nodding. "Alright, kid. I can tell you a few things, but listen—you have to hold it down 'till Tuesday for the full explanation, alright? I'm not just doing this to be a dick," he clarified, quickly raising his hands in an appeasing gesture. "It's just... What I'm about to tell you, it's some pretty serious shit. Okay?"

Kei nodded.

"Okay." Soma hesitated and sighed again, unsure of how to start. "Okay, first off; you know the Inferno of Miyahara?"

Kei nodded again. "That's that little island city up north that got destroyed by a volcano back in twenty-twelve, yeah?" Now that he actually thought about it, he remembered what a shock the disaster had been. The news had been abuzz with details surrounding the events for weeks. From the total number of casualties, to the environmental impact, to criticisms about building a city in the vicinity of a volcano—despite it being inactive. The island city was completely decimated by the eruption, and apparently the air over the area had become so polluted that the government had blockaded the sea around it, preventing anyone from going near the area.

On top of it all, the destruction of such a large city had really been hell on the economy, which had still been recovering from the earthquake just a year prior.

"It's fake," Soma said.

Kei froze. "What?"

* * *

A few stragglers walked into the conference hall as ten AM steadily approached. Despite the quiet tension that slowly built up as the time passed, the room was still filled with chatter as the trainees talked with their friends. That being said, there were plenty who sat silently, fidgeting nervously in anticipation and anxiety.

Shaojie didn't really pay them much attention, instead focusing on the brunette in front of him.

"They scouted me back in August," Sayaka said, twirling her hair between her fingers. "But I didn't really start training 'till October."

The boy propped his head on his hand and nodded along as she recounted the story of her recruitment, but wasn't really listening. Slowly, her words faded out, and Shaojie found himself really studying Sayaka. The way her auburn hair seemed to shimmer in the light, the tiny mole under her left eye, the cute way the edges of her lips curled downwards when she frowned...

"...And then I pulled out a knife and stabbed you in the gut," she finished with a flat gaze.

She really was... Wait, what?

"Wait, what?"

"I knew you weren't listening," she huffed and punched him in the shoulder. "Rude."

"Sorry, Sayaka-chan! I just zoned out for a minute!"

"C'mon, Shao-kun..." The girl sighed and pouted at him. "What were you so focused on, anyway?"

"Oh, uh... Y'know," he muttered, a blush lighting up his face. "Things. And stuff."

She raised an eyebrow. "Uh huh. Is that why you were staring at me?"

"Ah... well... y'know, I just kinda... ehm..." Shaojie tried to explain himself, tripping and stumbling over his words like a drunk man.

Then thankfully, Naomi came to his rescue. "Feng-kun," she said, stopping the boy from making an ass out of himself, "it's about to start. Please quiet down."

Shaojie promptly stopped talking and mouthed _"Thanks for the save,"_ to Naomi, who responded with a shrug, before turning his attention towards the front.

All around him, the sounds of conversation slowly died down as the doors at the other end of the hall opened and a few adults walked inside. At their head were two people Shaojie recognized; his homeroom teacher, Niko Shiomi, looking dapper as ever, and a silver-haired man wearing a gray suit, Akihiko Sanada. He wasn't sure that he'd ever met the others who followed behind them; a portly man with graying hair, and a tall brown-haired woman dressed in a business suit.

All trainees in the room stood almost simultaneously as Shiomi walked up to the raised podium at the front of the room, flashed a genial smile, and spoke. "Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for coming today." They all fixed their postures and listened with rapt attention. For all intents and purposes, the man standing before them now may as well have been the Buddha spreading his gospel.

All trainees in the room stood and fixed their postures almost simultaneously, as Shiomi walked up to the raised podium at the front of the room. They all listened with rapt attention, because for all intents and purposes, the man standing before them now may as well have been the Buddha spreading his gospel.

After a few seconds of silence, he flashed a genial smile and spoke. "Good morning, everyone! Thank you all for coming today. Now, before we begin, I'd like to congratulate every single one of you present in this room. The fact that you're standing here means that you have successfully completed your training. As of this moment, you are no longer trainees, but members of the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad. Or 'SEES' for short," he added with a laugh that some shakily returned before he continued. "Now then, there are some amongst you who have more than distinguished yourselves during the course of your training. Those particular people will now selected and placed into specific specialized teams suited for their skills."

And with that, Shiomi produced a tablet from under his arm, and the tension in the room suddenly increased tenfold. "First," he said. "Will be SEES Team Ten. Its members are as follows; Ishiwatari Yoshikage."

Suddenly, a small mountain made its presence known by letting out a loud whoop. Despite having already known the guy for a while, Shaojie still couldn't help but be amazed by his sheer size. Ishiwatari was a positively _massive_ dude, dwarfing everyone else in the room with his height and width. His dark brown hair was styled up into a pompadour, and he wore a brown bomber jacket and a graphic t-shirt with the word " _Sabaton_ " on its front, along with faded jeans, and heavy brown boots. With his hands raised high into the air, Ishiwatari swaggered towards the podium to the half-polite, half-intimidated applause of everyone in his vicinity.

"Miura Gen." Ishiwatari then doubled back and reached down into the crowd next to him with his massive paw, lifting up Miura, a lanky young man with shaggy black hair. He wore a black hooded jacket, jeans and sneakers, and let out a groan as he allowed Ishiwatari to carry him forwards.

"Huh," Shaojie heard Naomi mutter beside him. "So they're _not_ based on what class you're in..."

He turned towards her with a raised eyebrow. "Naomi-chan?"

The girl shook her head. "It's nothing, Feng-kun. Don't worry about it."

The rest of the team was called out, consisting of Shaojie's friend Taiji Ono, and Shouya Hirata, a freckled pretty boy who was, frankly, kind of a dick.

"You four are now the members of SEES Team Ten," Shiomi said, as he shook each of their hands and ushered them towards Sanada, who whispered something to Ishiwatari before waving them all away. Again, they were met with polite applause from everyone else as they made their way out of the conference hall.

Everyone quieted down once more when Shiomi cleared his throat and began to call the next team. "Next—SEES Team Eleven. Its members are as follows; Inafune Koichi, Kojima Asuka, and Kojima Haruka."

Inafune, a tall blonde boy with rimless glasses, stood up from his seat down in front and sent a friendly wave and a smile towards his two teammates, who were both sitting together at a corner in the back. The two girls were identical twins who shared their facial features, dark purple hair, and magenta eyes, but that was where their similarities ended.

Only one of them stood up, the one with straight hair pulled into a ponytail, and wore a black coat over a red turtleneck and a pair of tight black pants. She turned and looked expectantly down at her sister, who in contrast to her, had her hair cut short, with bright green high-lights going through it, and wore a cropped leather jacket over a graphic t-shirt and a pair of distressed black jeans.

She sat there with her legs crossed and her arms folded, returning her sister's expectant look with a stern glare of her own, before eventually, she relented and stood up as well next to her.

"Just the three of them, huh?" Shaojie mused out loud. "Guess those guys must be pretty good to have a team all to themselves."

"They are," Naomi nodded. "They're the team from Miyahara."

"Whoa, hold up, what!?" His eyes suddenly widened, flitting back to look at Team Twelve's members. " _Those_ are the guys from Miyahara?"

She let out a quiet chuckle. "Not what you expected?"

"Not really... I was thinking that they'd be more of the grizzled veteran types, you know? Big ol' scruffy beards and scars, instead of just..." He tried to make some vague gesture with his hands. "Three normal people."

And then a goose bump suddenly broke out across his spine, as he felt some primal instinct within him screaming in horror. Shaojie turned and caught sight of one of the twins—the punk-looking one—staring directly at him with a cold, malignant gaze. Apparently, he'd been loud enough that she—and probably her other two teammates—had heard him.

The boy very carefully did not move, did not blink, did not even dare to breathe, as the girl's pink eyes bored directly into his. And then he was saved from a terrible fate by the other twin, who placed a hand on the girl's shoulder and whispered something in her ear. The punky twin rolled her eyes and marched off towards the front of the room, while her much more courteous and less murderous sister politely smiled at Shaojie.

"Please excuse my sister, Feng-san," she said with a bow, before turning and walking away. The moment she did, Shaojie finally allowed himself to take deep, shuddering breaths, trying to keep his heart calm.

Sayaka reached over and placed a hand on his back. "Hey... you alright, Shao-kun?"

"Y-yeah," he managed to stammer. "Just... Do me a favor, and remind me not to shit-talk them again."

* * *

This chapter was last updated on December 3, 2017.


	7. The World in Its True Form: Part 6

"Most people," Soma elaborated, "think that the Inferno happened because of the Tōhoku earthquake. Aftershocks triggering an eruption, and all that. It's all bullshit. The volcano at Miyahara's extinct. Hell, no natural disaster happened there at all."

Kei stared at his cousin in disbelief. The very idea sounded absurd. Practically every media outlet had spent months talking about the event, how the entire city had just been wiped out in the blink of an eye. Short of a nuclear bomb just being dropped out of the blue, there was nothing else in the world that could cause that kind of destruction. "Then what happened there? Did everyone just pretend the city went up in smoke just for the hell of it?"

"Not exactly," Soma said, shrugging slightly. "I guess you'd have to go back in the timeline a bit. Around spring of that same year, strange things started happening in Miyahara. A bunch of people started disappearing, then turned up dead." A grim look crossed his features as his eyes met Kei's. "Sound familiar?"

 _'People disappearing? Why would—'_

The boy's train of thought came to a crashing halt when he caught the implication.

"Kei-kun?" Soma said, giving him an expectant look.

Kei could do nothing but nod numbly for his cousin to continue.

"Then shit starts getting weirder over the next few months," Soma continued. "Gas explosions, more disappearances, way too many 'car crashes,' perfectly happy and normal people losing their minds and committing suicide for no apparent reason." The list went on and on, and Kei could feel a pit growing in his stomach as he listened. This... This was hitting way too close to home.

"Pretty much all hell was breaking loose for months. And then you get to December twenty-first, and it all came to an end."

"So... that's when..."

"Yeah, that's when the Inferno happened," Soma said. He then leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers in front of him. "Now just think about that—The whole city's in ruins, a huge chunk of the population's dead, the whole area's locked up tighter than Chernobyl, and everyone thinks that it was just some volcano."

"Soma... what are you trying to say? What does this have to do with me?"

"What I'm trying to say..." He sighed and rubbed at his forehead. "What I'm saying is that it's a good thing you came here, Kei-kun. Otherwise, Toyono would have ended up going through something like Miyahara." Soma paused and gave him an unreadable look. "Even more than it already has."

Kei didn't really know how to respond to that. He just stared back, trying and failing to form words.

Soma quietly cursed. "Shit, okay. Maybe that was too much to just drop on you—"

"N-no, it's... I'm alright," the boy shakily managed to say. "It's just..."

"A lot to take in?"

He shrugged. "Y-yeah."

"Alright, well..." Soma reached over and awkwardly patted him on the shoulder. "Take it easy, okay? And don't dwell on it too much—Things'll clear up on Tuesday. So, uh... cool?"

"Yeah..." Kei eventually responded. "Cool."

Soma gave him one more awkward pat, then turned to leave. "Oh, by the by," he said, pausing at the door. "Uh... don't go telling anyone about this, please? I wasn't even supposed to tell you in the first place. My boss would kick my ass if she found out." And with that, he was gone.

The boy stared after him for a minute, before sighing and slumping back, trying and failing to comprehend it all. The thought that Toyono, his home, could have ended up destroyed like Miyahara shook him.

 _'And then there's the swordsman, with his whole remembering thing...'_

Then a thought popped up in his head. What if they were linked? The swordsman, and Miyahara, and Toyono?

He shook his head. "No, that doesn't make any sense..." There was nothing at all that implied any connection with his dreams, but... Kei tried to dismiss the crazy idea, but his morbid curiosity just wouldn't go away.

His dreams had only started after the day he'd been injured. The very same day in which the events in his hometown—the disappearances, the suicides, the sudden, inexplicable deaths—had all come to an end. But instead of turning into a ghost town like Miyahara, Toyono's crisis had wound up being way smaller in scale. But what exactly was the connection? Sure, Kei had the effect, but he didn't have the faintest clue of what the cause could possibly be.

He closed his eyes, and suddenly, some half-forgotten words came to his mind. "Thou art I, and I am thou..." Kei whispered. He repeated the sentence a few more times, trying to spark some far-off memory, but nothing seemed to click.

* * *

As the newly-formed Team Eleven exited the room, Kiyomi waited for the applause to subside before speaking up again. "Next is SEES Team Twelve. Its members are as follows; Ten'ō Ryu." This time the cheering went beyond polite applause and broke out into loud cries of acclaim. Shaojie's class representative strode up towards Kiyomi, while the other trainees shouted out their congratulations and patted him on the back as he passed by.

"Ten'ou..." Sayaka muttered. She leaned over beside Shaojie to whisper to Naomi. "Hey, Naomi-chan, isn't Ten'ō-kun supposed to be super strong, or something?"

Naomi looked at her with genuine surprise. "What, you mean you don't know? Ten'ō-kun's practically the trainee of the year. I mean, he's not exactly on the level of, say, Sanada-san or any of the veterans. But with his ability, if he's given even a few months of experience... Who knows just how strong he'll grow?"

"Whoa... So the class rep's a bonafide badass, huh?" Shaojie couldn't help but gape in amazement alongside Sayaka as he glanced again at the boy. Ten'ō smiled and nodded his thanks at all those who cheered him on. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with fair blonde hair, blue eyes, and a defined jawline. He wore a long beige coat and a blue scarf across his neck, alongside brown slacks and formal shoes. Compared to him, Shaojie feel somewhat underdressed in his track hoodie and jeans. Overall, 'heroic' was the only word that came to Shaojie's mind as he watched the boy walk up and shake Kiyomi's hand.

Shaojie nudged Naomi with his elbow. "Sounds like the kind of guy whose team you'd wanna be on, eh, Naomi-chan?"

She seemed to consider that for a second, and to his surprise, she actually frowned and shook her head. "No... not really."

Sayaka gave her an askance look. "How come? Didn't you want to be in a really strong team?"

"Yeah, but..." Naomi trailed off with a shrug. "Ten'ō-kun's pretty much guaranteed to be the leader. Hell, he's probably better than the three of us combined. If I was on his team, I'd—Ah!" She suddenly cut herself off. "We missed the announcement for the rest of his team!"

Shaojie turned towards the newly-christened team at the front and found that Naomi was right. He didn't recognize any of the other four members of Team Twelve, who all seemed like really tough-looking upperclassmen. Well... all except for the shortest guy, a blue-haired freshman who looked caught between excitement and pants-crapping nervousness. His name was... Harada, or something. Shaojie couldn't quite remember his given name.

Apart from Harada, the class rep was actually the second youngest in his team, but despite that, everyone else looked to him with respect.

Shaojie turned back to Naomi and offered her a sheepish grin. "Oh... whoops?"

"Sorry," Sayaka whispered too.

The girl heaved an exasperated sigh and shrugged. "Whatever. Just... Try and keep it down, would you? I wanna hear when we're called up."

The minutes passed, and more ex-trainees were called forward by Kiyomi. Five more teams had been formed when he suddenly paused and frowned at his tablet for a moment. He turned to Sanada and the other two people beside them, and after exchanging a few hushed words, he turned back towards them. Finally he said, "I will now announce today's final team; Team Seventeen."

The moment the word "final," left his lips, a collective "what?" rang out in response. Shaojie looked around the room, a brief headcount telling him that around twenty-something people were still left in the conference hall. So what the hell did the guy mean by "final?" Were they all about to get lumped together into some big super-team? Or... were they just not going to be placed into one at all? A brief pang of fear struck the boy then. The thought had never even crossed his mind before then. What if he, Sayaka, and Naomi didn't make the cut? Kiyomi had said that they were all already part of SEES by default, but what did that even mean without a team?

As hushed conversations broke out throughout the hall, Kiyomi cleared his throat and regained everyone's attention.

To his left Sayaka stood slowly rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet. To his right, Naomi folded her arms, trying to keep a cool look, but she gave away the act by incessantly drumming her fingers on her elbow. Shaojie, for his part, just shoved his trembling hands into his pockets and _hoped_. Most teams had around four to five people on them, not counting the veteran trio from Miyahara. Which meant that, at best, the three of them had a chance to make it onto this final line up. But the odds were, what, three to twenty-five? Realistically, they sure as hell didn't look promising.

After a few seconds of deliberation, Kiyomi spoke up again. "Mikami Rin," he called, and a pale, green-haired boy whom Shaojie just kinda recognized walked forward. Mikami's clothes were pretty simplistic—He wore a white jacket over a black turtle neck, beige pants, and black formal shoes.

"Inoue Mana," a pretty blonde girl, wearing a cream parka and jeans, followed closely after him.

 _'What the hell? Who names their kid "skull?"'_ Shaojie almost scoffed as he watched a dark-haired boy with pale eyes walk up, decked out in entirely black clothing.

And finally, there was Honda Issei, a jock-looking guy with undercut copper hair, who wore a green field jacket over a white tee and jeans.

Shaojie heaved out a sigh he hadn't realized he was holding, allowing his shoulders to slump. Damn, it felt like he'd just gotten punched in the stomach. And by the looks of it, plenty of the twenty-odd remaining rookies also seemed pretty bummed out about not getting into any teams, either.

He was about to comment to Sayaka when he heard a quiet, monotone _"What?"_ right next to him.

Shaojie turned and nearly flinched when he caught sight of Naomi. At a glance, there was nothing unusual about her expression. But when he really looked at her eyes, he noticed the way they remained fixated solely on Kiyomi. She may not have been flying off the handle and slinging curses at him, but her cold, emotionless stare spoke volumes.

For several months, every trainee had been looking forward to this day, when they would officially be inducted into SEES. But no one had shown the same level of enthusiasm as Naomi. For as long as he'd known the girl, she had been focused on her training with an almost religious fervor. Whenever she wasn't busy maintaining her grades in school, Naomi spent countless hours training, preparing her mind, body, and soul for the sole purpose of joining the ranks of the Shadow Operatives. It was clear to him, and to practically everyone else who knew her, that this was her life's goal. He couldn't even to imagine the anger she must be have been feeling, now that everything she'd worked for was dashed away in a single stroke.

Against his better judgement, Shaojie spoke up, hoping to calm her down. "H-hey, Shira—"

"Shut up," she cut him off immediately, her eyes fixated solely on their teacher, who continued his speech unaware of her unwavering gaze.

"Those of you who haven't been placed on a team, don't be discouraged. Instead of being part of a specific team, you will placed into the Provisional Corps. Make no mistake," he said, raising a hand to appease the groans of confusion and disappointment. "By no means does this mean that you're in any way inferior to your comrades, nor is this meant to punish you. The Provisional Corps is meant to help you further develop your skills. I'm more than certain that once you've earned enough time and experience, you will eventually find your way into a team," he said with an encouraging smile that seemed to raise most people's spirits. "That's all for now. You are dismissed."

The moment Kiyomi had stopped speaking, Naomi promptly turned on her heel and began weaving her way through the crowd.

"Hey, Naomi!" Sayaka tried to call out to her, but the other girl ignored her as she continued her steady march towards the exit.

Sayaka moved to follow after her, but Shaojie grabbed her by the arm, stopping her. "Sayaka-chan, she looked _pissed_. D'you really wanna go after her?"

The girl sighed, her lips pursed and face cutely pinched in worry. _'—Gah, no! Bad lower brain! Now's not the time!'_

"Naomi's probably gonna be pretty heated for a while," Sayaka said. "Still, we should probably try and catch up with her soon. She... Well, you know how she gets when she's worked up."

"Yeah, I sure do..." He grimaced and absently rubbed at his side. "Are you _sure_ this is a good idea? It doesn't sound like it's gonna be very healthy for either us."

Sayaka gave him a stunned look, as if he'd slapped her. "Shao-kun, she's our _friend_. I know that Naomi puts up a tough act, but we can't just leave her alone, not when she's like this."

"I... Ah, hell." Whatever argument Shaojie was about to make died in his throat when he saw the serious look in her green eyes. With a sigh, he shrugged and relented. "Lead the way, boss. Let's go find her before the building gets blown up, or whatever."

A positively beatific smile broke out across Sayaka's features at that. "I knew I could count on you, Shao-kun!" she said, giving him a quick hug before grabbing him by the wrist and pulling him behind her, damn near dislocating his wrist.

 _'Man,'_ Shaojie groaned, as he was almost literally dragged around by the petite girl, _'The things I do for this chick...'_

* * *

Every step she took felt stiff and mechanical, as if she wasn't in full control of her body. Naomi's legs simply kept moving with no real goal in mind. She just wanted to get away and be anywhere but _here_.

 _"Don't be discouraged,"_ Kiyomi's words echoed like a taunt in her mind as she walked down the hallway. _"You'll eventually find your way onto a team."_ She caught herself scowling at the thought, before she schooled her expression and shoved shaking hands into her pockets. A dull, aching sensation spread across her spine, running down her shoulder blade to the middle of her back.

Naomi couldn't let anyone see her like this. She needed to be calm, collected. Just like Jeanne would be.

Naomi paused when she found she'd already reached the elevator. After pressing the call button, she crossed her arms and stood leaning against the wall.

She could hardly believe anyone had bought it at all. Kiyomi had sugarcoated it and made it seem as if it were some great boon, a chance to further improve themselves. But she'd seen his eyes, and recognized his speech for what it really was: a lie. The truth was that they'd already been judged, measured, and they'd all been found wanting. And as a result, they were all being sidelined.

Ishiwatari, Ten'ō, Mikami, and those other lucky few who had _actually_ become part of SEES would rise high, while the rest would be left behind to wither, ignored and tossed away like yesterday's garbage. The very best they, the Provisionals, could hope for was that someone would take pity upon them, and perhaps grant a promotion onto a team. Then, and only then, would a Provisional have any form of mobility.

The mere thought of it nearly made her blood boil. Naomi bit her lip in frustration and nearly jabbed at the button again, only stopping when she heard the soft digital note announcing the elevator's arrival.

The doors opened, and for a split second, Naomi almost felt her heart stop beating as she met the gaze of the woman inside. A face much like hers looked back from behind a pair of glasses, before the woman stepped aside to allow her entry, and returned her attention to her tablet.

With her anger completely extinguished, Naomi shakily stepped inside and stood next to her as the doors shut and the elevator began to descend.

The ride felt infinitely long and awkward as the girl stared directly at the floor, trying to find the courage to speak up. Her stop on the ground floor passed by, followed by the first, second, and third sub-levels. And with every moment that passed, she hated herself more and more, desperately wanting to say something. _Anything_. But the words just caught in her throat.

Meanwhile, the woman didn't spare a single glance at her.

It was only when the elevator slowed to a halt at sub-level five, and as her opportunity was slipping away, that Naomi allowed the words to slip out.

"Mother."

Atsuko Shiranui paused halfway out the door, without turning, and gave the tiniest incline of her head to indicate she was listening.

Naomi licked her dry lips, uncertain of how to proceed now. The aching slowly intensified into an almost unbearable feeling of burning. At that moment, a myriad different questions ran through her mind. A silent and empty home. Nights spent alone. Bleeding, sweating, and breaking bones, all for the purpose of bettering herself. So many missed moments and so many questions, all demanding answers...

But then and there, only one thing mattered to Naomi.

"I — Did... I didn't make it into a team today... did you...?" She couldn't bring herself to finish, _'Did you have something to do with that?'_

"Yes," the woman said, and moved to walk out, but stopped when Naomi spoke again.

"...Why?"

"Your abilities are limited," her mother responded simply, before stepping out of the elevator and allowing the doors to shut behind her.

Naomi wasn't sure how long she stood in the elevator, staring blankly at nothing. Eventually, some sense of clarity returned to her, and she slumped against the wall, barely suppressing a shuddering breath that might have turned into a sob. She tried to compose herself, to muster up the simmering rage and indignation she'd felt just a minute before, but... She just couldn't find it in herself to be angry anymore. Everything just felt numb and drained.

"Limited..." she repeated. The word felt disgusting in her mouth, like some sort of insult against her very existence. It implied that she was weak, that she had ceased improving, that everything she was, and ever would be, was meaningless. "I'm not limited," she whispered again.

She almost didn't notice her hand moving towards the elevator's console and pressing a button, almost as if of its own will, until the elevator smoothly began to ascend once more.

* * *

The more he thought about it, the more Kei's head felt like spinning. He had no real reason to believe any of it. Hell, any normal person would have dismissed Soma's claims as some crackpot conspiracy theory, but it was just way too damn real. Everything _clicked_ , and it clicked too well.

On top of that, the very idea that someone out there had the resources and sheer balls to make up a disaster like the Inferno of Miyahara—Lying not just to a nation, but literally to the world at large—was terrifying.

It raised the question... How many other events could have been faked? And just what was Soma's role in all of it? For that matter, why had he even told Kei about any of it in the first place?

"Man," he let out a humorless chuckle, running his hand through his hair. "Next thing I know, I'm gonna be running around screaming about how Nine-Eleven was an inside job."

The sudden ringing of his cellphone broke through the silence, nearly making him jump in alarm. Chuckling again, Kei picked up the phone. "Moshi mo—"

The responding shout of " **KEI!** " damn near burst his eardrum.

He yanked the phone away, and his eyes widened in realization when he read the caller ID; '神谷 猛.'

Takeshi Kamiya.

"You wanna try screaming a little louder, dad?" He hissed, bringing the phone back to his ear. "I think some of the folks over at Okinawa didn't quite hear you."

"Don't give me that sass," his father continued. "It's been two whole days since you left, and you haven't even bothered to call us at least once? What's your deal?"

"Oh." Now that he thought about it... he never did get a chance to call his parents when he'd reached Iwatodai. Or rather, he'd just forgotten to do so. Between everything that had happened in the past two days—The exhausting trip from Osaka, his long day at school, getting lost, and his conversation with Soma just now—his parents had completely slipped his mind. They must have been sick with worry.

Kei felt like he should probably say something, to apologize for his lack of attentiveness and for making them worry about him.

"Yeah... My bad."

Nailed it.

His father snorted in response. "Really? That the best you can do?"

"Well, yeah," Kei shrugged, even though his dad couldn't see it. "I could mail you an apology card, if you wanna have that instead?"

Takeshi laughed at that. "Right, whatever. So, how are things, Kei? You doing alright?"

"Eh, getting by," Kei said, lifting his feet onto the coffee table.

"Good to hear. How's the ol' arm holding up?"

"Well…" He glanced down at his left arm and tried to clench his hand. He managed to twitch his fingers a bit, before he felt a sharp sting of pain. "It ain't fallen off yet, so I guess that's something, yeah?"

"Hey, quit that," his father suddenly said.

"Quit what?"

"Quit poking at your arm. It's not gonna heal any faster if you keep screwing around with it, you know."

Kei's eyes widened in confusion. "Wha—? How'd you know?"

"Oh, I—"

The boy cut him off mid-sentence. "If you say something lame like 'I have my ways,' I'm gonna hang up."

"...I can spontaneously develop mind-reading powers whenever you do something stupid," his dad finished.

He chuckled. "Okay, sounds legit."

Then, there was a pause in the conversation. "So, uh..." He trailed off, trying to find something to say. "How're things on your end? How's mom doing?"

"Everything's okay, the missus's doing fine." His father sighed. "She misses you, you know. You and Meggie, both."

"Oh..." Yeah, that sounded about right. His mom hadn't been at all happy to see him go. Specially not so soon after... He shook his head, trying to dispel the thought. "So, you missing me, too?"

"Hell no!" Takeshi laughed. "Having you out of the house is the best thing that's ever happened! Now I can store all the crap I don't need in your room. Also: your bed is _comfy_."

Kei snorted. "Wow. _Reeeeally_ feeling the love here, pop. So if you don't care, how come you're the one calling me instead of mom?"

"Hey, I've got a quota to fulfill, kid. If I get enough 'good dad points' this week, your mom's gonna let me put—"

He nearly gagged at the mental image. "Okay, eww! Tee-Emm-Eye, dad! Tee-Emm-Eye!"

They shared a laugh, before falling into silence again. After a few moments, his father sighed and spoke up. "But, seriously though, are you holding up alright? We... we didn't really get to talk much before you skipped town."

Kei shrugged again on reflex. "I'm surviving, I guess."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Another pause, before his father sighed again, and his voice took on a more serious tone. "Listen, Kei... I know it's been... rough for you, this past couple of weeks. Yuri's—"

"Dad," Kei interrupted, "let's... not talk about that. Please."

"I... alright." His father relented, with a touch of concern in his voice. "But I'm here to talk, if you want to. Your mom, too. You know that, right, Kei?"

The boy nodded. "Sure."

"So don't hesitate to call either of us whenever you need, alright?"

Kei nodded again. "Yeah, alright."

"Right. Well stay safe, son. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

That got a laugh out of Kei. "...So, you want me to go get a girl pregnant at eighteen and bumble my way through med school, _oyaji_?"

There was a brief silence on the other end. "Ooookay, lemme rephrase that; Don't do anything I _would_ do. Smartass."

"Gee, wonder where I get that from."

And with one more shared chuckle, they ended the call.

Kei picked up the TV remote and idly began channel surfing, not really paying any attention to whatever was on. His mind was filled with thoughts of home, his duels with the swordsman, whatever the hell was up with Miyahara, and all sorts of unpleasant and wildly confusing stuff. After a few minutes he announced, "I'm bored," to no one in particular. If he just kept himself shacked up and alone with his thoughts, he'd probably drive himself nuts within the hour.

So against his better judgement, Kei put on his coat, got his shoes from the _genkan_ , and headed out for a stroll to occupy his mind.

* * *

"So, you think she's gonna be in here?" Shaojie asked, as they stepped off the elevator.

"Pretty sure," Sayaka said, leading the way through the short hallway. "If there's any place Naomi-chan would go to to blow off steam, this is it."

"Alright, cool." He nodded. "So, uh, you got a game plan for this?"

She rolled her eyes. "Shao-kun, we're just gonna talk to her. It's not that complicated."

They then reached the door at end of the hallway, which led into the gym. The Headquarters' gym encompassed the majority of the building's third floor, giving it more than enough space for accommodating dozens of people. It's perimeter was lined with all manners of workout gear; punching bags, free weights, power racks, treadmills, and much more.

At the center of the gym was a boxing ring, flanked on two sides by a pair of large dojo mats, suitable for sparring. It was there that they found Naomi, flipping about with a bō staff in her hands. Even from this distance, the muffled heavy metal that blasted from her headphones echoed across the empty gym.

Shaojie couldn't stop himself from staring as Naomi flowed from motion to motion, the staff becoming a blur in her expert hands as she jabbed and swept it to and fro. Her red hair was tied up in a loose ponytail, with strands twisting and trailing after her as she moved. She wore a cropped black tank top, which gave him a good look at her toned navel, glistening with beads of sweat from her workout, and yoga pants.

The two most perfect words to ever exist: _'Yoga. Pants.'_ God _damn_ , the name itself sounded like poetry in motion. It was like a physical manifestation of beauty, God's latest gift to this cruel, cynical world. Somewhere out there, Shaojie knew, the _Ode to Joy_ was being sung in celebration of this very moment. _'YOGA! PANTS!'_ That slim, black, and _oh so tight_ , piece of fabric clung around Naomi's lean waist, emphasizing her hips, her thighs, and her—

Then, a tiny voice of reason in the back of his head reminded him of the girl he was standing next to. And the fact that neither she nor Naomi would have any issue with murdering him and dumping the body in the bay. Thus, Shaojie wisely stopped ogling and shut his mouth.

"Naomi-chan!" Sayaka called out, waving her hands to get the other girl's attention.

Naomi spun around again, stabbing at the air as if she were skewering an enemy with a spear. He caught sight of her eyes then, unfocused and far off, as if she wasn't really paying any attention to what she was doing. She spotted them from the corner of her eye then, bringing down the staff and pulling down her headphones. "Oh hey, Sayaka-chan, Feng-kun. What are you guys doing here?"

"What's it look like? We were looking for you."

"What for?"

"Well, you looked kinda down earlier, so me and Shao-kun figured we could cheer you up, so... here we are."

Naomi seemed surprised by that, but she quickly composed herself and shook her head. "Thanks, but you guys don't need to bother. I'm fine on my own."

"Oh," Sayaka stumbled, lost for words at her quick dismissal. "Uh... You sure?"

"Yep. Positive," Naomi responded, as she turned around and slowly began to resume her kata.

Shaojie turned to Sayaka. "Sooooo... That didn't work out. Any other ideas?"

She sighed and looked back at their friend. "Naomi... I know that you really wanted to be part of the Operatives."

Naomi paid her no heed, steadily increasing the speed of her movements.

"I... We all saw how hard you worked at it. Hell, I'm pretty sure no one else put in as much effort as you did. And I'm disappointed we didn't make it, too. But it's not the end of the world, you know? I'm sure that if we just stick together, we can—"

Then, Naomi abruptly stopped, slamming the tip of her staff onto the mat. "That's not what it's about," she said, turning around slowly to face Sayaka. "I don't care about SEES, I don't care about the Shadow Operatives, and I could give two shits about the damn teams!"

"Then what is it about?"

"I..." She frowned and shook her head. "Forget it. Just go home, both of you."

"Nuh-uh," Sayaka said. "You're my friend, Naomi, there's no way I'm just gonna leave you sulking here all by yourself."

Naomi shrugged again. "Well, maybe I _want_ to be alone," she said, turning her eyes down to stare intently at the floor.

"C'mon, talk to me," Sayaka pleaded as she took a few steps towards her.

"Just go home," Naomi repeated.

A tense, uncomfortable silence fell between the two girls. Things were getting nowhere, fast. So Shaojie decided to throw caution to the wind and cut in. "Aren't you bored, Naomi-chan?"

Both Sayaka and Naomi turned towards him, with confusion written clearly across their faces.

He gestured vaguely around the gym. "I mean, you're just standin' around here, just doing boring old katas. You call that a workout? Why not kick it up a notch? Whaddaya say to a little spar?"

"You want to spar," Naomi repeated, raising an eyebrow. "With me."

Sayaka's eyes widened at that, and she opened her mouth to interject before Shaojie silenced her with a wink. "Yeah...?" He said, turning back to Naomi. "That's what I said, wasn't it? Or was I speaking in Chinese accidentally?"

Naomi scoffed and folded her arms, with her staff propped up against her shoulder. "You do remember how that end up for you last time, right? How're your ribs holding up?"

Shaojie barely suppressed a wince, forcing a confident grin onto his face. "D'aww, you're worried about me, Naomi-chan? Don't fuzz over it, I'm A-okay!"

"Uh-huh. Anyhow, I'm not interested."

"Not interested?" He repeated with a mocking tone, mirroring her arm fold. "Or... afraid?"

Naomi looked at him with an unimpressed glare. "...Dude, are you serious?"

"One-hundred percent cereal. I might not be a boxer like Sanada-san, but I can still pack one mean punch." He threw a few jabs and a straight for extra effect. "You're not gonna win this time."

The girl rolled her eyes and heaved an exasperated sigh. "Not buying into it, Feng."

"That's exactly the kind of thing someone who's afraid would say."

Her glare intensified. "Shut up already."

Shaojie tactfully and eloquently responded by blowing a raspberry at her.

Their stare down dragged on for several long, tense moments. Shaojie almost lost his composure, but luckily, Naomi backed down first. The girl closed her eyes and slowly exhaled through her nose. "Fine, I'm outta here," she finally said, hoisting the staff onto her shoulders.

"I... Wait, what?" Shaojie stared after her as she casually started walking towards the locker rooms.

"Next time you wanna piss someone off, try not to be so obvious and lazy about it. I'm not that easy to rile up, you know." She then turned and gave him a wide, twisted grin that Shaojie knew would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life. "'Sides, I'm sure Sayaka-chan wouldn't be too happy if I broke anything important."

While Shaojie recoiled in fear for his life, Sayaka stepped up with a hopeful smile. "So what do you think, Naomi-chan? I'm sure that if we work hard at it, we can move up from the Provisional Corps together, like Kiyomi-sensei said. Maybe even as a team."

Naomi met Sayaka's smile with another sigh. "To tell you the truth, I don't think it's gonna happen. We'll be lucky if we don't get stuck doing drills forever. But thanks for coming, anyway, guys," she said, giving them both a small smile. "I... I appreciate it."

* * *

This chapter was last updated on December 3, 2017.


	8. The World in Its True Form: Part 7

Going outside was a mistake.

It had taken Kei just about ten minutes to realize this fact. And then another half hour for him to realize he wasn't going to have an easy time finding his way back. At first he'd just put that worry in the back of his mind and spent some time just wandering around, poking in and out of random shops, and catching a meal at a fast food restaurant.

He idly wondered why on Earth he'd left the warmth and comfort of the apartment to go get himself lost in an unfamiliar city.

Oh, right. Because he was _bored_ , and hadn't learned his lesson last time.

Iwatodai wasn't exactly Osaka or even Tokyo, but it was still a pretty big city nonetheless. Big enough for a country kid like himself to get very lost, very quickly. Kei passed by shops, restaurants and parks, through crowded streets and quiet little alleyways. After a while, the sky began turning orange and his shadow grew larger, indicating night would come in just about an hour or so.

He stopped walking in the middle of a sidewalk and yanked off his earbuds, replacing the tune of _Band on the Run_ with the hustle and bustle of Iwatodai's evening. Craning his neck to look around, Kei searched for some sort of landmark. All around him were several small business—restaurants, electronics shops, and the like—surrounded by massive office buildings and chain stores. Across the street was a tall building with a large sign advertising foreign cars on its side. Which, now that he really thought about it, actually looked vaguely familiar...

He groaned with a mixture of terror, annoyance, and a hint of embarrassment as he was struck with the dawning realization of, _'Oh my God, I just walked in a circle for six hours.'_

His phone had given up the ghost a while ago, so he didn't have GPS to save his hide this time around. He'd even tried to read a couple street signs every once in a while to try and find his way. Unfortunately, _"Via Laterale de Fleuve"_ didn't really give him much to work with, even with the katakana translation helpfully provided just underneath.

He sighed again. Going outside had been a _huge_ mistake. And so was the French language. And every other language, for that matter.

"They shoulda just made the whole world stick to Japanese and dumped the rest into the garbage…" He grumbled as he turned towards a random direction, his breath visible against the cold air. He kept on walking for a long time, taking random turns here and there, hoping against all hope that he'd get lucky and somehow end up right back at Soma's.

Eventually, he reached a shrine tucked away in a small area surrounded by trees. He couldn't help but chuckle when he realized that this was the very same shrine he'd ended up at just after getting off the bus.

Deciding that he might as well, Kei walked up the steps to the shrine, taking the sights. At one corner there was a little park area for children to play in, filled with a jungle gym, swings, slides, a seesaw, the works. At the end of the footpath was the shrine's main building. It was actually pretty surprising how big the place was, considering it was smack-dab in the middle of a big city. As far as he knew, inner city shrines were supposed to be tiny, practically able to fit into an alley. The place was deserted, but that wasn't really all that surprising, considering how insanely cold it was that day—A whopping negative one degree Celsius.

The Shrine wasn't really all that far from the road, but the city's noises—The loud roar of cars, the bustling sounds of people going to and fro—all seemed to be washed away, if just for a few moments. It was... actually pretty chill.

"Oh," someone called out from behind him, breaking the silence in the shrine. "Hello, Kei-kun."

Sitting on a bench behind him was a pale boy, with shaggy green hair tied into a ponytail, who looked back at him with a serene smile.

"Oh, hey. You're, uh... you're Mikami-han, right?"

The boy's smiled widened just a bit as he nodded. "I'm glad your remember me, Kei-kun."

Kei nearly frowned at the casual use of his given name, but managed to turn it around into a polite, if strained, smile.

An awkward silence fell between the two of them before Mikami spoke up again. "Would you like to sit here, Kei-kun?"

Under normal circumstances, Kei would just have made up some excuse and kept on walking, but... right now he was cold, his feet hurt, and he sorta wished he was at home playing video games. So against his better judgement, he shrugged and took a seat. The other boy gave him a brief smile before staring off into the distance.

Kei, for his part, just sat there uncomfortably, trying and failing to recapture that cool, relaxed feeling from just a moment ago. After a few minutes of silence, he finally cracked and tried to strike up a conversation, just for the sake of ending the awkwardness. "What're you looking at, Mikami-han?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing in particular. I was just looking at that robin over there," Mikami said, pointing toward the shrine's main building.

Kei followed his finger and caught sight of a small bird resting on the roof. It was... a bird, like any other he'd ever seen. Two legs, two wings. There wasn't really anything out of the ordinary about it that he could see. "Uh-huh. And what's so special about it?"

Mikami shrugged. "Like I said, nothing in particular. But I just saw it, and I started wondering... How did it feel the first time it flew? Was it scary to fall high up from its nest? Was it exciting to spread its wings and soar for the first time? How far has it flown since then? Was it born here, in Iwatodai? Is it the same bird I saw this morning? I like to think it is, and that it decided to spend its day following me because it liked the color of my hair.

"I wonder how it feels about flying now? They say that once you do something enough times, its novelty will wear off, and it won't seem so special anymore. Maybe that's true. But I don't think flying could ever lose its splendor. I think that it still feels thrilled every time it opens its wings and kicks off." Mikami smiled again and closed his eyes, as if the bird's image was somehow clearer in his mind. "If I could fly, I don't think I'd ever stop being amazed."

Oh. So Mikami wasn't a weirdo, he was just insane. That actually explained a lot. "Huh, that's..." Kei struggled to think of a word for a moment. "Deep...?"

Mikami didn't seem to hear the doubt in Kei's voice. "Hah, is it really? I'm glad to hear you think so, Kei-kun."

This time Kei wasn't able to stop himself from frowning. "Yeah, listen, Mikami-han, don't take this the wrong way, but... You mind not calling me that? It's kinda weird to be called by my first name by someone I don't really know, yeah?"

Mikami didn't seem fazed by his request at all. He just nodded and kept on smiling. "That sounds perfectly reasonable, Kei—Sorry, Kamiya-kun."

He sat in thoughtful silence for a few moments, before he turned back to Kei and spoke up again. "Do you believe in gravity, Kamiya-kun?"

Kei raised an eyebrow and pulled a coin out of his pocket, held it in front of him, then let go. It bounced off the ground and skidded out of sight. "Gravity confirmed for real," he said. "More news at eleven."

Mikami laughed and shook his head. "Hah, that's not quite what I meant. I mean 'gravity' as in... there's a reason why events happen as they do, why people meet. If the factors were to change, the end results would still be the same. I believe that 'gravity' is the reason why that robin has been following me all day, and why we happened to run into each other here."

"Huh... that sounds a lot like what most people would call 'fate' or 'destiny,' Mikami-han."

"I suppose," his classmate shrugged. "I think you in particular have strong gravity around you, Kamiya-kun. Like interesting events and people are drawn to you."

Kei scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Chyeah, _'interesting'_ is one way to put it... Waiddaminnit, did you just call me fat?"

The polite smile Mikami gave him in response was almost infuriating. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about, Kamiya-kun."

"Uh-huh, sure you don't." Kei shook his head and leant back on the bench.

A shrill screech cut through the air right then.

He raised his eyes to the sky and spotted a dark form circling overhead. His mind barely had enough time to realize that this was some sort of bird before the figure tucked in its wings and fell straight down. Its speed was absurd, making it seem less like an animal and more like a bullet as it cut through the air. Within moments it had closed in on the robin Mikami had just been gushing about, its talons poised forward to pluck the smaller bird out of the air.

By some miracle the robin managed to catch sight of the falcon diving towards it, and flew out of the way just in time. But the failed dive wasn't enough to deter the bird of prey. While the robin began fleeing for refuge in the canopy of trees surrounding the shrine, the falcon was already in hot pursuit.

The two birds soared through the air together, and every time the falcon tried to approach the robin, the smaller bird just barely managed to move away and escape its grasp. The precision of their movements almost made the seem elegant, like a dance. But eventually, that elegance came to a sudden end.

It only took one mistake, just a split second of delay for the falcon to catch up, snatch the robin and start tearing into it. The robin struggled and shrieked out in panic as the claws began to shred its flesh and began to carry it upwards.

With a wince, Kei turned to Mikami. "I think your robin's about to go the way of Jason Todd, man."

For once, the boy wasn't smiling; instead, his lips were pressed into a thin line as he watched the hunt intently. "No," he said with a shake of his head. "It's not over quite yet, Kamiya-kun."

Kei turned back towards the hunt and saw that the robin had somehow managed to slip free of the falcon's clutches. But even with its regained freedom, the situation was looking beyond dire for it; it was wounded, steadily losing blood and struggling to remain aloft. Kei frankly couldn't see any outcome to this situation that didn't end with its death.

The falcon flapped its wings and took off into the sky, its eyes never leaving the robin. Eventually the predator reached what it deemed to be an acceptable altitude, folded its wings, and began to swoop back down.

But the tiny robin had not sat idly by as its death raced towards it. In spite of its injuries, it took flight and began to move. Only... instead of trying to flee towards safety, it began flying up, _towards_ its hunter.

There were fifty feet between the two of them.

Fifty feet became forty feet.

Forty became Thirty.

The distance between the two birds practically disappeared in a fraction of a second, and despite himself Kei was sitting on the edge of his seat, watching it all with anticipation.

Twenty feet.

Ten.

Five.

Four.

Three feet.

They were almost close enough to touch when the prey finally made its move.

Just as the falcon got into range, the robin closed a single wing, destabilizing its flight and sending itself into a wild barrel roll. But that last-second juke was just enough to avoid the talons and guarantee its victory. The falcon had dived too fast, too steeply and too close to the ground for it to possibly avert its course before colliding. It died immediately on impact, while the robin flew off, battered and bruised, but alive.

The silence that accompanied the aftermath felt staggering.

Kei was standing—he hadn't even noticed when he'd gotten up—with his hand clenched tightly, and his mouth agape as he watched it all unfold. He licked his dry lips, unclenched his shaking fist, tried to slow his wildly beating heart. Eventually he managed to compose himself just enough to whisper, _"That's rad!"_

A chuckle came from his right. "It certainly is, isn't it?"

Mikami's interjection reminded Kei that he was not alone, and a self-conscious blush colored his cheeks. "Oh... uh... Well, I- I guess you were onto something with the whole flying thing, Mikami-han. That bird was pretty boss."

Almost as if on cue, the robin fluttered down and landed just a few feet away from them, exhausted and just barely standing.

Mikami calmly walked over, knelt and held his hands out in front of him. The robin recoiled away from him, but did not take off. After a few moments of deliberation, it jumped into his waiting hands. Holding the bird close to his chest, the boy then turned to Kei and raised an eyebrow. "Jason Todd?"

Kei shrugged. "Well... yeah, he was Robin in the comics." Mikami regarded him with a silent, confused expression. "...Y'know, Batman's sidekick? He got killed by the Joker. With a crowbar." The silence continued. Kei groaned and shook his head. "Look, my g— a friend of mine used to be really into American comics, so I just kinda picked some stuff up."

A shiver ran down his spine. Kei looked up and noticed that the sun had already set. Suppressing another shiver, he stood up from the bench. "Anyways, I should probably get going," he told Mikami. "Last thing I need is to get frostbite, or something, yeah?" With a parting nod, he began to head out of the shrine. His stride slowed down as he recalled the many hours he had spent that day, wandering in circles up and down the city.

With a sigh, Kei turned and walked back towards Mikami, figuring that asking for help couldn't possibly get him any more lost than he already was. "Actually... I'm, uh, kinda lost. Think you could help me find an address, Mikami-han?"

The boy nodded. "Of course, I'd be happy to, Kamiya-kun."

"Perfect, thanks. See, I need to find a place between, uh..." He trailed off, trying to remember the pronunciation. " _'Avenue De Bouleau Blanc,'_ and Kaname Square. Any idea where that is?"

"That won't be a problem," Mikami said, pointing to the thoroughfare just outside the shrine. "That street is _Avenue De Bouleau Blanc._ And right there," he added, moving his finger towards to the block right across from them, "is Kaname Square."

"Oh." Kei stared off towards the block for almost a solid minute. When he spoke again, his voice was tiny and flat, devoid of all emotion. "So... you mean it's right there."

"Yes."

"This whole time, it was literally right over _there_ , in walking distance."

"It sure was," Mikami helpfully supplied.

"Huh..." He turned back to Mikami and let out a weak chuckle. "W-well, I'm from a small town and all, y-yeah? Can't really expect a country bumpkin like me to get around the city, yeah?" He tried to force a smile, but it felt stiff and awkward, so dropped it almost immediately. "...Anyhow, I'll see you at school. Thanks for the help, Mikami-han."

It was a straight shot to the apartment complex from there, so Kei managed to reach the apartment without getting lost again.

"Yo," Soma greeted as the boy walked inside, shivering and chattering his teeth as he kicked off his shoes. "Dude... how long were you out there?"

"Long enough that I shoulda known better," he mumbled, taking off his jacket and practically face-planting into the couch. "What a mess... I'mma just go to sleep now."

"Don't you want any dinner?"

"Nah, I already ate. 'Sides, if I get hungry—" Kei cut himself off with a yawn before resuming, "I can just get by with cookies and soda."

Soma chuckled. "Cookies and soda. Textbook definition of a wholesome meal, right there." He could almost feel, taste and smell the sarcasm dripping from his cousin's voice.

"Hey, I'm still alive, aren't I?" With that, he closed his eyes and quickly drifted off.


	9. The World in Its True Form: Part 8

Heya, folks. Last time around, Demons Anarchy of Pride left a review, asking where'd I found the story's cover image. I've already answered his question in private, but if anyone else is curious, the artist's name is "Koubou" and his work can be found in Zerochan. Unfortunately, the dude seems have gone AWOL a few years back, and hasn't produced any more content since then. Regardless, he's made some pretty good stuff, and I'd recommend checking it out.

* * *

When his eyes opened again, Kei saw a world of endless gray.

He did the usual routine, grabbing the sword that materialized in front of him and then performing a full turn to face the swordsman, silently walking towards him.

"You can talk," Kei said flatly. It wasn't an accusation or a question—simply a statement.

His opponent ignored him and continued his advance.

"Hey, drop the act and answer me."

The swordsman didn't slow his stride in the slightest. So Kei improvised. Flipping the sword in his hand, the boy placed the edge against his own neck.

That actually gave him pause. The swordsman stopped and stared at him for several long moments. **"...Are you serious?"**

"Glad I got you attention," Kei said, giving him a wry grin. "You ready to talk this out like a normal person? Or should I swing by tomorrow?"

The swordsman planted his weapon on the ground, folding his arms. **"And what exactly is it you wanna know?"**

"Whaddaya think? We've been at this for seventeen days now, every single night. What's this all for? Why am I here? Just what is it you want from me?"

The swordsman shook his head and scoffed. **"That's it? I'd say I'm disappointed, but this is pretty much par for the course when it comes to you. At any rate, I don't see why I should tell you anything."**

"You sure about that?" Kei pressed the sword a bit closer to his jugular. "I don't have to play ball with you either. A flick of the wrist, and I'm outta here."

 **"** **You wouldn't do that,"** the swordsman stated simply.

Kei looked directly into his blank face, right where he imagined the eyes would be. "Wouldn't I?"

 **"** **No."**

They held that stare down for a long, tense minute, until Kei finally sucked his teeth and slowly let his arm drop to his side. "See, here's the thing; You tell me I'm running out of time, and don't mention for what. You say I need to remember your name, and don't even drop a hint. Now we're both here, we have a chance to talk it out, but you don't even have the common decency to explain any of it." Kei gave him an exasperated look. "You can see why I'm not exactly bouncing off the walls with excitement here, yeah?"

 **"Gravity..."** he began, unfolding his arms. **"'The reason why events happen as they do, why people meet...' Sounds like a bunch of weird philosophical nonsense, doesn't it? Thing is, that guy, Mikami? He wasn't exactly off. There's something headed your way. Something big. And it's my job to make sure you don't wind up getting yourself killed,"** he said, emphasizing his words by pointing directly at Kei.

"Okay, cool." Kei nodded. "Big mysterious threat on my life, gotcha. Now, you mind explaining what exactly that is? Did I accidentally watch a videotape last week or something?"

The swordsman stood there deep in thought, fingers idly drumming on the hilt of his sword. After several moments of deliberation, he finally shook his head. **"Always with the dumb questions. Why ask something you already know the answer to?"** He then took a step forward, and disappeared.

Kei's eyes were unable to track his movement. It was sheer instinct, honed by constant battles, that prompted him to roll out of the way, saving his life as a sword slammed down on the very spot he'd been in just a split second ago.

His enemy stood back up. **"Day after day after day, I've been trying to help you, to give you the skills you need to survive. This isn't even entertaining anymore, man."** He heaved a tired, almost mournful sigh.

"Yeah? Well, why don't we get back to normal human communication?! That felt way more educational than whatever this wax-on, wax—Oof!"

All air was expelled from his lungs in a single instant. He doubled over as the knee removed itself from his gut, the sword falling from his grasp. A hand grabbed hold of his hair, and with a pull, he was forced to look up into the featureless gaze of his opponent.

 **"** **You don't understand,"** he said in a flat, scornful tone. **"I've done all I can, but this isn't something that can simply be learned through words."** He let go of Kei's hair, allowing the boy to fall onto his knees. Dusting off his hands, the swordsman walked back to where he had landed, and yanked his sword from the ground. **"And from what I've seen so far, you're a terrible learner."**

"...I—" Kei tried to stand up, form some sort of retort, but his shaky knees failed to support his weight. He sucked his teeth. Using the sword to prop himself up, Kei managed to get back onto his feet. "Th—They say… They say there's no such thing as a bad student," he managed between wheezing breaths. "So… I guess that means you're a pretty lousy teacher."

He was met with sheer silence for a few moments. Eventually, his opponent chuckled. **"** **Oh, 's that right? Then let's test that theory, see if I can't bear a lesson or two into ya."** He cracked his knuckles and grabbed his sword, bringing it to its usual spot at his shoulder. **"** **What say we kick things off with 'Getting Your Ass Kicked One-oh-One?'"**

* * *

For all his bravado and flippant attitude, Kei held no delusions of being able to win. Seventeen consecutive nights—defeat after defeat after defeat—had proven just how outmatched he was. In every single one of their duels, the swordsman's victory was already a foregone conclusion. The gap between them was too wide for any other result to be a possibility.

In a way, all the lost duels from the past two weeks were suddenly to his benefit, as his opponent fell into a set pattern. Through the accumulated experience of each battle, he'd learned 'prediction.' If he disappeared in a burst of speed, he would reappear less than a second later within a set distance of ten meters. If he gripped his sword in a certain manner, he was about to perform a specific attack. If factor X, then result Y. It was strikingly similar to playing a videogame—trial and error led to knowledge which could be used in the future.

The enemy had the advantage in speed and strength, yes, but he had no variation in his behavior.

But he was exhausted and bleeding, just barely standing on swaying feet. In such poor condition, along with his skinny and unathletic physique, Kei had no way to use this knowledge to its fullest potential.

A horizontal slice came to take his head. He tilted back slightly, letting it pass by his chin. He batted away a strike to his wrists, a strike to his legs, and one to his waist, but was unable to do anything about the one that sliced through stomach.

"Ah—hh…! C-crap!" Kei bit down hard on his lip, distracting himself from the pain just enough to strike at the enemy's exposed shoulder.

But his retaliatory attack was futile, parried away with a casual flick of the fingers. Having all his momentum redirected so quickly made him trip and fall. He managed to twist and land on his back, but just before he could get up, a foot pressed down on his right arm and a sword was placed against his throat.

The enemy stood over him, practically radiating smugness. **"Hey now, what's the matter? Why the glare? You were talking all that hot mess just a minute ago, man, I thought you were about to do something impressive. Say,"** the swordsman removed his foot from Kei's arm and bent down closer to his face. **"What was it you called me again? A… lousy teacher, was it?"**

Before he had a chance to continue his taunt, Kei seized the moment and swiped at his head. Predictably, it was avoided, as the swordsman backed away with a laugh. But it was enough to give Kei some breathing space.

"Y'know what," the boy said as he staggered back up, "I think I liked you way better when you were nice and silent!"

 **"** **What, can't take a bit of friendly banter?"**

Kei shook his head, pressing his broken arm against his wounded stomach, hoping to staunch some of the bleeding. "I don't like anybody who has a mouth bigger than mine."

 **"** **Funny, I was about to say the same thing."**

And with that, they both rushed back in.

Kei hadn't entered this battle with any sort of gameplan beyond 'don't get hit,' but despite that, he was somehow doing better than he ever had before. It must have been, what, seven minutes by now? He'd never survived that long in any of the previous nights.

But he couldn't find it within himself to be pleased at that fact. He had to fight tooth and nail for every precious second, and it wore on him.

He felt nausea building in his throat. A fierce headache throbbed with every heartbeat. He spared a brief glance towards the ground at his feet, painted almost entirely red just by having him stand there. Kei was certain that if he looked into one of the many cuts covering him, he'd be able to see all the way down to the bone.

 _'_ _Thank God I won't have to feel these in the morning.'_

The knowledge that this wasn't real, that he would be completely fine once he left the gray world, was the only thing keeping him calm, and even then just barely.

And so, they raged on.

Kei parried and evaded blows upon blows, guided by his mind's pattern. He'd long since lost count of how many times. The headache intensified with each rhythmic clash of steel, to the point where his vision began to blur. He almost didn't see his enemy rear back, bringing his elbow all the way past his shoulder, his sword pointed directly towards the center of Kei's chest.

Everything stood still for a moment. A strategy developed in his mind, so quickly he could barely even understand it. But he knew all he needed to know—this was his opportunity. He knew exactly what would happen next. He could end it.

Then time resumed its flow, and the enemy closed in, thrusting forward. Kei improvised once more, already pushing his legs as hard as he could to throw his weight towards the left.

He was just a split second too late to evade the thrust. Instead of piercing through his heart, the sword impaled itself up to the hilt into his side, just barely missing his liver. But it didn't end there. The swordsman's charge had produced insane speed, propelling him—and by extension, Kei—forward like a missile.

But that was fine. It was exactly what Kei intended. After all, he was a robin flying towards a falcon that had dived too steeply.

He didn't try to struggle, instead letting the stinger's momentum carry him along with the enemy. It knocked the breath right out of him. The pain was almost overwhelming, spreading through his entire being, almost making him pass out.

But that was fine. He was exactly where needed to be, and the enemy had over extended and left himself wide open. While the swordsman's sword was occupied keeping Kei in place, he rendered himself completely undefended, practically begging to be attacked.

So the boy obliged.

Kei raised his own sword, and with what little air remained in his lungs, whispered, "Jackpot!" He swung forward as hard as he could, aiming for the enemy's head. The sword sliced through the air, closing in on his target—

—And then the enemy broke out of the pattern.

"—How?"

Kei stared incredulously at the hand that closed around his sword, bringing it to a complete halt. By the time his mind was able to process what had just happened, it was already too late. The sword was yanked from his grasp, the swordsman brought up his leg, and smashed it into Kei's broken left arm.

The kick tore completely pulverized the cast, shattered the still fractured bones, and for an instant his mind went completely blank.

When he came to, the gray world had not faded. He was lying on the ground. His throat felt sore, but no sound was coming out. He supposed that was because there was no air left for him to scream out. Kei saw a figure standing before him, a black silhouette against gray sunlight.

It began emitting sounds, and it took him a moment to realize that it was speaking. **"I'll admit, that was… impressive,"** the swordsman said. **"You're not the kind of guy who'd make that kind of crazy stunt. But hey, you get an 'A' for effort, hombre."**

Kei almost couldn't comprehend it. Impressive…? The enemy was congratulating him? For what, looking cool while failing? 'Hey, man, I kicked your ass super hard, great job!' That was the dumbest thing he'd heard in his entire life.

Without any conscious input, Kei began to move. He placed his right arm—hell, he could barely even feel it—against the cold ground, and pushed. He was barely able to lift himself a few inches before giving in and collapsing again.

 **"** **The hell are you doing?"**

Kei paid him no attention, instead rolling over onto his right side. He took a few moments to bring air into his burning lungs then tried to push again, using his shoulder for leverage. He heard something break somewhere, but didn't feel it in the slightest—his body was too numb right now to even register pain. Despite that he still managed to get onto his knees. He looked down at himself and saw an ugly mess. His torso resembled ground meat more than it did human anatomy. His left arm hung limply at his side, and there were strange bumps all over it—likely fragments of bone pushing against his skin. He was honestly surprised it was still attached to the rest of him. The swordsman's weapon was still sticking out of him, lodged just under his ribs.

 _'Oh, man.'_ A quiet snicker left his lips. _'Dad would have a freaking heart attack if he saw this.'_

In his peripheral vision he spotted his sword, not even a foot from where he had been lying. He scooped it up and used it once again as a crutch to hoist himself up.

Once he was back on his feet, the boy looked directly at his opponent and raised the sword in front of him. In slow, rasping breaths he said, "I can take you."

He was met with a long silence. Finally, the swordsman shook his head. **"No. You can't."**

They both knew this was the truth. Kei still tried, anyway. He stepped forward with slow, lame swings that were effortlessly avoided.

 **"** **What's the point of this? I know your type. You're the kind of guy who gives up, who turns tail and runs away from conflict. So how come you're still standing? Why is it that you keep trying, after failing every time? You just trying to blow some steam? Are you so pissed off that you went brain dead?"**

Kei didn't respond. _Couldn't_ respond. He had no answers to his questions. He was just running on fumes now, and his body could fail at any given moment. But at this point, 'winning' and 'losing' were irrelevant concepts. His instinct told him that he needed to continue fighting. The moment he even thought of slowing down at all, he would lose all momentum and crumble. And he wouldn't simply lose—he would _admit_ defeat. For some reason, that idea seemed unacceptable. So he kept going, swinging futilely until a hand closed around his wrist, restricting all movement with little effort.

 **"** **Just what is it that's pushing you forward? Is it the ultimatum? Did I scare you so badly you're actually taking this seriously now?"**

The swordsman trailed off, pondering his own words. Kei attempted to free his arm, but it refused to budge. The fingers didn't even twitch. He probably wouldn't be able to use it any further.

So he reared his head back, bringing it forward in a clumsy attempt at a headbutt. His forehead thudded weakly against the swordsman's chest. He brought his head back again, and the enemy wrapped his other hand around Kei's throat, keeping him in place.

The swordsman shook his head. **"...No, that can't be it. So, what then? Why keep going? It would be so easy for you to throw the towel, wouldn't it? That's your instinct, your natural state of being."**

That was true. The rational parts of his mind wanted to just stop and lay down. Hell, he never needed to be here in the first place. Refusing to fight had always been an option he could have taken. He could have always escaped the dream at any given moment by simply running himself through. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to just throw away the sword, to say _'I give up,'_ to stop fighting and just run away…

But… some part of him didn't want it to end. Some part of him wanted to stubbornly keep rising up to the impossible challenge, to continue fighting a battle that could only end in defeat.

It was stupid.

It was reckless.

It flew in the face of all common sense.

But Kei obliged that insane wish. He continued fighting, just to satisfy whatever foolishly proud part of his mind was pushing him on.

"I dunno..." he finally mumbled. Kei raised his gaze, looking directly at the vague blur in front of him. He shrugged weakly and smiled through bloodied teeth. "I g-guess... I just don't like you, that's all."

For a brief moment, the world changed.

For a brief moment, Kei saw a memory that was not his own.

* * *

/All fear for his life was gone, replaced by an uncontrollable thrill. A roar escaped his throat as he charged. The samurai named Arima looked at him with a shocked expression. He didn't even think to draw the _Wakizashi_ in his hands. The boy leapt at him, knocking them both over into the dirt. Without missing a beat, he lifted his quarterstaff up high before bringing it down, between Arima's eyes. The expression of shock in his face didn't change at all. He brought the staff back up, then down, again and again and again, slowly turning Arima's face into an unrecognizable mush.

The crowd around them was silent as the grave, watching the duel in…/

* * *

For a brief moment, the gray faded, and the swordsman's face became distinct. Vibrant blue eyes, a shock of silvery hair, and many other features that Kei's dazed eyes couldn't quite see.

For a brief moment, a name came to Kei's lips.

"That was… you're…!"

The swordsman shook his head and whispered, **"Then… I guess we're the same, you and I."**

But then the moment passed, and it was all gone.

The hands grasping his wrist and neck loosened, allowing Kei to move his head and his arm to fall uselessly to his side, sword slipping from numb fingers.

The swordsman backed up a step, appraising the boy. **"Maybe I was wrong about you,"** he finally said.

"Glad I made such an im...pre...oh," he trailed off as his legs gave out at last and he began tipping forward.

The swordsman grabbed him and eased him onto the ground. **"You're one mouthy punk, anyone ever tell you that? Still, I... you actually surprised me. What I just saw makes me think that you might just stand a chance."**

Kei frowned. "Would be nice to actually know what the chance is for."

The swordsman shook his head. **"I already told you, it doesn't work like that. I've done all I can. Now you're the one who has to make the effort to reconnect. Remember that; everything that happens from here on out is up to you and no one else."** His hand trailed down toward the sword still stuck in Kei's side. **"** **Now, it's about time you head back,"** he said, grasping the hilt and pulling.

And the gray world faded.

* * *

April 7th, 2014

 _'Man, I shouldda eaten dinner,'_ was the first conscious thought Kei had when his eyes opened. The sun shone through the window blinds, casting horizontal shadows all throughout the living room. With a yawn, he sat up and looked himself over. No weapons sticking out of him. Ribs still intact. Experimentally, he rolled both his shoulders, tried to tighten both hands into fists. The right did so with no issue, while on the left his fingers barely moved and sent and light twinge up the rest of his arm.

Yep. Working as intended.

Yawning again, Kei lied back down, looking at the light coming from the blinds, and pondering a name that had just been at the tip of his tongue.

* * *

Here, but not here, in a place much like this one, but one much unlike this place, a beast stirred in the darkness.

It rose from a twisted and ruined city.

It rose from a twisted and ruined city.

It rose from a twisted and ruined city.

It rose from a twisted and ruined city.

It rose from a twisted and ruined city.

It rose from a twisted and ruined city.

It rose from a twisted and ruined city, until it finally reached the top, untainted of all delusions.

On a man-made island, this intrusion was noticed.

 **ALERT.**

 **BREACH DETECTED.**

 **SHADOW IDENTIFIED.**


	10. The World in Its True Form: Part 9

Boredom was the mind killer. Boredom was the little death that brought total oblivion. Boredom was twenty-something years old. Boredom's hair was slowly thinning. Boredom was droning on and on about the advent of Europeans to Japan, all the while trying to ingratiate himself with the younger generation via inserting popular culture references into his lectures.

"...And so, after the first Portuguese explorers landed in Tanegashima…"

Shaojie looked to the clock hanging off the wall. Eleven-fifty. Ten more minutes. Just ten more minutes, and the suffering would end.

He glanced around the classroom, and unsurprisingly, not a single person was paying any sort of attention.

Sitting to his left was the student he'd met the other day, Kamiya, slouched back with his eyes half open, looking like his soul had long left his body. To Shaojie's right sat one of the other transfers, idly drumming his fingers on his desk, his head bobbing up and down to some imaginary beat.

"Say, did you guys know that the Japanese word for bread, 'pan,' is a loanword from Portuguese? Funnily enough..."

Some guys behind him were having a very indiscreet conversation, joking and snickering about something or other he didn't quite catch.

With her back turned to him, Shaojie couldn't quite see what Naomi was doing, but he was willing to bet that she was just about ready to drop dead.

He turned back towards the front of the room, where the teacher kept on talking, blissfully unaware of the fact that the amount of fucks given in the room had reached an all-time low. Shaojie actually felt some pity for the poor guy, watching him lecture with all that enthusiasm, clearly engrossed in whatever it was he was even saying.

"... _Anpanman_ until Yanase-san passed away last year. In fact, there's a manga called ' _One-Punch Man_ ,' which parodies _Anpanman_ …"

But he was just so damn boring Shaojie felt like his brain would just shut down if he kept listening. If people could die from overwork, _Karōshi_ , then Shaojie may very well become the first documented casualty of its opposite; death by boredom.

What would the term even be for that? _Taikutsushi_? _Daruishi_? Oh-Dear-God-Please-End-It-All- _shi_?

Regardless, in an effort to stop the spread of entropy into his mind and soul, Shaojie pulled out his phone, half-assedly hid it under his desk, and began watching a livestream of basketball.

The drumming stopped. The student sitting next to him—Miyazaki, or something—craned his head towards Shaojie, raising an eyebrow. "Dude, are you seriously watching basketball?"

"Well, yeah," he shrugged. "Not like we're missing anything important."

"And so!" As if on cue to prove him wrong, the teacher clapped his hands, emphasizing his words. "The _Sakoku_ edict effectively put an end to _Nanban_ trade. Now, can anyone tell me who it was that introduced this edict?"

Much like the rest of the class, Shaojie perked up at that. Twenty-odd pairs of eyes focused on the man standing before them, not in interest, but rather in confusion. _'Sakowha?'_ Just seconds ago, the guy had been talking about some manga, and now he just bounced right back to history? _'What the fuck is this dude's thought process?'_

"C'mon, now, anyone?" His gaze flicked around the room for a few seconds until they finally settled on some unlucky soul, a bright smile lighting up his face. "Ah, how about one of our transfer students? Kamiya-kun, do you know the answer?"

The boy suddenly flinched as if he had been struck. "Oh, I… Uh…" He ran his hand through his hair, eyes flitting back and forth, searching for some type of answer somewhere, before finally blurting out, "Err… O-Oda Nobunaga?"

A few scattered snickers broke out across the room.

"Oooh, nope, sorry, Kamiya-kun!" The teacher grimaced and shook his head. "Oda Nobunaga was long dead by then. The person who introduced the edict was Tokugawa Iemitsu, who was Shogun at the time. But hey, it was a good guess!" he added, giving him a thumbs up.

"Right, yeah." Kamiya slumped back on his seat, his cheeks burning red with embarrassment. Shaojie winced in sympathy.

And then the teacher opened his mouth again. "Speaking of Oda Nobunaga, has anyone ever noticed that he is often portrayed as a villain in fiction. Most people—"

Just before he could go into yet another long-winded tangent, divine providence arrived. The clock struck twelve and the lunch bell rang. He shrugged. "Ah, well, I guess we'll just have to wrap this up next time. Have a good lunch, everyone!" And then he was gone.

After a brief moment of sighs, yawns, and almost palpable relief, the classroom exploded into noise. Notebooks snapped shut, chairs scuffed against the floor, friends got up to talk amongst each other.

Out of the corner of his eye, Shaojie spotted Ten'ō bolting up from his seat, a phone clutched in one hand and a grim expression on his face. The class rep walked over towards Naomi and whispered something to her. After a moment of deliberation, she nodded and stood up. Ten'ō returned her nod, then headed towards Kamiya. "Excuse me, Kamiya-kun?" The boy raised his head to meet his eyes. "I don't think we've been introduced before, have we? My name is Ryu Ten'ō, I'm your class representative," he said, with a polite smile and a bow.

Kamiya bowed his head in greeting. "Uh, yeah, nice to meet you, Ten'ō-han." He then quirked an eyebrow and added, "So, you need something?"

"Right," the class rep raised his voice enough so that only Shaojie and Kamiya could hear him. "I'm sorry to bother you guys, but I've just received a message from Kiyomi-sensei. He wants to see all three of you guys," he said, motioning to include Naomi, who stood by with her arms folded. He then glanced at Shaojie, and added, "He said it was urgent extra-curricular business."

"Oh." Shaojie caught the implication almost immediately. "Well… Guess we'd better go, then, dude."

Kamiya looked somewhat skeptical, but still nodded and followed them out into the hallway. The group passed down stairs and crossed a couple more hallways, eventually arriving before the faculty office. Ten'ō knocked thrice on the door in a certain pattern, then waited for a muffled "Enter," to come from within before opening it. Kiyomi stood at the center of the room, holding a phone to his ear. He raised a finger to his lips and finished his conversation. "They're here. Yes, of course. I'll be sure to let them know, director." With that, he hung up and placed the phone on a nearby desk, next to a plain-looking black bag. He then turned towards them, clasping his hands behind his back. Shaojie couldn't help but feel somewhat unnerved by the expression the man held; No longer a friendly and easygoing smile, his teacher now wore a sharp, almost militaristic scowl.

"We don't have much time," he said, "so I'll keep this brief—Provisional Operatives Feng and Shiranui, you are to escort Kei Kamiya to headquarters immediately."

A stunned silence met his declaration, stretching out until Kamiya piped up, "Wait, you shot who in the what now?"

This prompted Naomi to speak up too. "Why now? Why us?" Kiyomi turned towards the girl, focusing his frown solely on her. She met his glare unflinchingly, without even a trace of hesitation. If he'd been in her place, Shaojie was sure that he'd have backed down in an instant.

"I'm not privy to all the details," Kiyomi said. "I've only been ordered to have Kamiya safely delivered to Headquarters. Since you two," he nodded towards Shaojie, "are already acquainted with him, I thought you would be ideal for the job."

Shaojie fidgeted uncomfortably at that. "Uhh... 'A-acquainted,' sensei?"

"Well, yeah," Ten'ō said, giving him a conspiratorial wink. "You guys did bring him down to the infirmary when he passed out the other day, right? What was the problem again...? Heatstroke, was it?"

Shaojie nodded vigorously. "R-right! Yeah! Absolutely! We sure helped this guy out!" He turned to Kamiya and lightly nudged him in the side. "By the by, how's the ol' heatstroke, Kamiya-kun? You, uh, haven't had any more of that since then, right?"

"Uh… Nah, not really," the boy stammered. "Been trying to keep myself cool and all, yeah? But seriously, though, what's—"

He was cut off when Naomi pushed on. "And just for that, out of all possible candidates, you chose us? I'm not buying it." Her eyes narrowed with suspicion as she continued. "Besides, if there's some sort of emergency, it'd be logical to standby here until the danger passes or the situation is handled. So why send us out?"

Kiyomi shook his head. "We don't have the luxury of just sitting and waiting this out. There's a good chance that the school will be targeted."

That was enough to throw Naomi off. The girl backed up with slow, shaky steps. "Wh-what? How?" Her voice wavered slightly, even as she tried to keep up the illusion of calm.

"Wait," the class rep cut in. "Kiyomi-sensei... you don't mean _here_ on the surface?"

"Of course not." Kiyomi said. "We can't risk that sort of confrontation. Which is why I'll have you in the upper Layers, Ten'ō."

Ten'ō blinked at that. "Me, sensei?"

"You're the best we have," Kiyomi said, and he meant it, too.

Shaojie could see his point now. While Ten'ō had only been inducted into SEES just the day before, it the guy could live up to all his hype... Yeah, Shaojie could definitely see why Kiyomi would want him sticking around. Getting benched sucked hard, yes, but he knew that right here, right now they'd only be a hindrance. And hopefully, Naomi did too.

"You and your team will be the first line of defense in the upper Layers," Kiyomi continued, "I'll have Ishiwatari and—"

"So that's it?" Naomi spat, her fists clenched and a fierce glare on her face. "You just want us to be out of the way?"

Oooor not. _'Goddammit, Naomi.'  
_  
The girl stepped forward to stand in front of Kiyomi. "So while SEES does all the work, we get to run away and play babysitter, huh?"

"H-hey, wait," Kamiya weakly protested. "Seriously, what does any of this have to do with me?"

Neither Kiyomi nor Naomi paid him any attention.

She began to open her mouth, but Kiyomi cut her off before she even had the chance to speak. "That's enough. This is neither the time nor the place for insubordination and petty glory-seeking." His stern words made Naomi recoil slightly as if she'd been struck. "If you cannot carry out these orders, then I'll find someone who can. Is that understood, provisional operative?"

Naomi averted her eyes, clenching and unclenching her hands for several silent seconds. Finally, she relented, bowing before their teacher, keeping her eyes firmly on the floor between them. "...I apologize, sir. Feng and I will escort Kamiya."

Kiyomi simply nodded. "Good." He then picked up the bag and handed it to Naomi. She unzipped it, took a look at its contents, then looked back up at Kiyomi, quirking an eyebrow. "The director wanted me to give you these, as a last resort," he explained. "You shouldn't run into any trouble out there, but if worst comes to worst, you should be able to defend yourselves."

She nodded at that and zipped the bag closed again, slinging it over her shoulders. "Anything else... Sir?"

"No, that will be all. Dismi—"

"Hey, just hold on a minute!" Kiyomi was interrupted once more when Kamiya cut in, drawing all eyes to him. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"Kamiya..."

"Dude," Shaojie said, "weren't you listening? We gotta get going."

"Hey, you guys're all going on about insubordination, and directors, and headquarters, but I never agreed to get involved with... Hell, I don't even know what's going on." He ran a hand through his hair. "I'd rather not get wrapped up in something liable to remove several important organs. I happen to like my organs, 'specially when they're in the right spot, without any funny-looking holes."

Kiyomi sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "In case you missed the entire point of the conversation, Kamiya, you'll be in danger if you stay here. You _need_ to leave."

"Danger?" Kamiya scoffed. "Danger of _what?_ "

Shaojie decided to interject before yet another argument could get kicked off. He stepped over towards Kamiya and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, just look on the bright side, dude!" He said, trying to put on a convincing grin. "You get to skip out on half a day of classes!"

The transfer student looked ready to retort, but in the end he backed down with a sigh. "Fine, let's... Let's just get this done," he said.

With that, the two of them followed Naomi out.

* * *

The wind was nowhere near as fierce as it had been in the past few days, but it was still more than chilly enough to make Kei shiver. He shoved a hand into his pockets, idly wishing that he had been wearing gloves, or that his coat was warmer, or that Spring would hurry up and finally rear its head. Aside from the biting cold, the day looked perfectly normal. The sky was cloudless, they walked amongst large crowds, and occasionally passed by some police officers, who didn't even bat an eye at seeing three students wandering around outside during school hours. No matter where he looked, everything seemed to be completely fine.

So just what was the great nebulous danger supposed to be?

Confusion and no small amount of frustration ran through his head, but he kept quiet and followed his classmates as they passed through Port Island. Shiranui led the way, red hair flipping to and fro as she turned to glance in a random direction every so often. Kei and Feng trailed behind her, silently walking side by side, though Feng did occasionally try to make some small talk.

After a particularly long period of silence, Kei gave in to his curiosity and asked him, "Hey, Feng, where're we even headed, anyway? Kiyomi-sensei said something about a 'headquarters?'"

"Yeah," his classmate said. "You ever seen that big ol' building at the other end of the island, near the marina?" Kei nodded back, craning his head to look upwards. Even from the street level, it was visible along the skyline, jutting out above the other buildings. "That's where we're going."

"Right, but what's it even supposed to be? And what's it got to do with the school?"

This time Shiranui was the one to respond, stopping her stride to turn towards him. "Kamiya-kun… do you actually not know?"

"Well, wouldn't be asking if I did," he said, with a sheepish shrug. "...So, uh, no."

"Then how are you…?" She trailed off, looking about half as confused as he currently felt. She shook her head and tried again. "Kamiya, do you know anything about something called 'SEES?'"

"'SEES?'" He paused for a moment before nodding. "Yeah, actually. I think I got a scholarship from some program with that name, or something. 'S why I came to this school in the first place, but nobody's really told me what it's even supposed to be."

"I—" Whatever she was about to say next was interrupted by the shrill ringing of a phone. Shiranui reached into the on her shoulder and pulled out a cellphone, much like the one Kiyomi had been using earlier. It was a strange model he had never seen before, glossy black and completely featureless, without any sort of manufacturer logo. Bringing it up to her ear, she answered, "This is Shiranui." Almost immediately, her stance relaxed just a bit as the person on the other end replied. "Ah, Yamagishi-san? Yes, ma'am, he's with us. We're en route to headquarters, just past Avenue D'Lima." Then, abruptly, Shiranui froze, a shocked expression settling on her face. "H-here? But that's... what about the school? I see... Of course, ma'am. Roger, I'll keep you posted," she said, slipping the phone back into her pocket. Shiranui then reached into the bag again and pulled out an earpiece, which she placed into her ear.

"What's up, Naomi-chan?" Feng asked. "What'd she say?"

"The situation's changed," Shiranui said simply. "Feng-kun, Kamiya-kun, we need to get out of the streets." With that, she started walking again, veering towards the right, instead of continuing in the direction they'd originally been heading.

Kei and Feng shared a brief, confused glance, before following in her wake. Shiranui slowly but steadily sped up her pace, bringing the group up to a light jog. They came to a stop at the entrance to an alley, where Shiranui knelt down and opened the bag once more. Peeking over

They came to a stop at the entrance to an alley and walked inside. At its end was a simple wall, with a rectangular steel section. It was so innocuous Kei almost didn't notice it.

Feng walked up to the steely pane and rapped his knuckles against its surface. "The access tunnels? Shit, Naomi-chan, you weren't kidding when you said the situation's changed, huh?"

"Nope, not at all." She then knelt down and opened the bag once more. Peeking over her shoulder, Kei watched her pull out a pair of leather straps, followed by a small, glinting silver object.

A chill ran down his spine, and he flinched away out of reflex. "Whoa, whoa! W-what the hell?!" he shouted, eyes going wide as he realized what exactly she was holding. "Is that gun? Did Kiyomi _give_ you a _gun?!_ "

Shiranui sighed and rolled her eyes. "Keep quiet and calm down, Kamiya-kun," she said, tossing the gun and what he now realized was holster towards Feng. The other boy looked surprised, but caught them nonetheless, attaching the holster to his belt and putting the gun inside. She pulled out another gun and holster, and attached them to her own belt, before slinging the bag back on. She then stood and walked up to the steel pane, holding the black phone to its surface. The pane emitted a low pitched _beep_ and slid sideways into the wall, revealing a long, downward-sloping hallway on the other side.

Kei found that he had only one response for this sight. "What."

"There's access tunnels like this all over the island, and in some parts of the mainland, too," Feng explained. "Y'know, for emergencies."

Kei repeated his previous line of inquiry. " _What._ "

Shiranui tapped at her earpiece and said, "Ma'am, we're about to enter the tunnels." She listened to the response and nodded. "Roger. We'll see you there." She then slipped the phone back into her pocket and placed a hand on her gun, ready to draw it at a moment's notice. "This'll give us a straight shot to headquarters. Let's hurry, we don't have much time," she said.

While Feng and Shiranui began to walk inside, Kei remained still and took a moment to internalize and really consider all that he had seen today, and over the past month in general. Practically being Shanghaied into a school halfway across the country, two armed strangers ordering him to follow them into some sort of secret spy tunnel, the not-dreams, the ambiguous threats on his life, the near-loss of his arm, Meggie, Tetsuo, Yuri...

Too much. It was way too much to take.

"No," he said, taking a step away.

His classmates both turned, looking at him as if he'd just grown a second head. Feng was the first to speak up. "Wait, whaddaya mean, 'no?'"

"I mean no," Kei repeated, clenching his jaw. "I'm done. I'm not following you guys in there."

Shiranui scoffed and stepped up to him, blue eyes boring into his. "Are you out of your mind? We need to keep moving, Kamiya, or else—"

"Are you out of _yours_?" he spat back. It occurred to him that he maybe shouldn't antagonize an armed person, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "Why the hell would I trust anything you guys say? You just drag me outta class, tell me the school's gonna blow up, pull up with guns, and now you want me to go to… whatever this is? What am I 'sposed ta think?!"

"W-well…" Feng stammered. "Technically, no one said the school was gonna blow up, dude. It just—"

Both Kei and Shiranui rounded on him and snarled, _"_ _Shut up, Feng!"_

Shiranui then turned back to Kei and opened her mouth. She then promptly shut it again, her eyes widening as she stared at something over his shoulder.

He turned his head, his anger and confusion disappearing immediately. Rising from the wall just behind him was an enormous black arm. Bulging with muscle, it passed through the concrete just as easily as if it were water, allowing a shoulder to follow in its wake. Its six, tree trunk-sized fingers clenched almost experimentally, their knuckles cracking as they grasped at the air.

Kei stared at it incomprehensibly for several long seconds before he found his voice.

"What."

By the time the word had left his lips, the hand was already rushing towards them. The six fingers wrapped tightly around him, Shiranui, and Feng, dragging them all into the darkness.

* * *

He fell through the twisting darkness.

He fell through the twisting darkness.  
He fell through the twisting darkness.  
He fell through the twisting darkness.  
He fell through the twisting darkness.  
He fell through the twisting darkness.  
He fell through the twisting darkness, and it all burst into color around him.

Blue and orange and green and yellow and purple mixed together in a stomach-churning whirl of movement. Kei's ears popped, he felt the wind rushing around his body, and then the maddening storm of motion stopped. He slammed back-first into the ground, but the impact didn't really hurt as much as it probably should have.

"Gah—! Wha—! Aaagh—! D-damn, you're h-heavy…!"

The impacts of his two classmates falling onto him, however, did hurt quite a lot.

Feng and Shiranui moaned and groaned in pain, completely unaware of him until he managed to grunt, "G-get... offa me…"

They quickly scrambled onto their feet, allowing Kei to sit up and breathe properly. Shiranui leant against the wall to catch her breath, one hand unholstering her gun, while Feng bent over and placed both hands on his knees, panting heavily.

Though his head still swam, Kei took note of their surroundings—they were still in the alley, and the door into the tunnel was still open, but the giant arm was gone. He glanced towards the wall it had come from and saw a large, smooth crater which hadn't been there before. He wasn't sure if it was because of the vertigo, but... the air felt... _wrong_ , somehow. Heavier, more oppressive, as if it were pressing him down just by being there. It made him feel sluggish, and his breathing even more laborious.

Once she'd composed herself enough, Shiranui spoke up, "Everyone alive?"

"Y-yeah, somehow," Feng said between sharp inhales. "But... my breakfast's probably gonna make a guest appearance... urp... any minute now."

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at that before turning towards Kei. "Kamiya?"

"I... I think so..." He shakily tried to get onto his feet, but stumbled halfway up. Luckily, Shiranui managed to catch him before he could fall. "Wha—what happened? What the hell was that thing?"

"That's what we were running away from, Kamiya. We call it a Shadow."

That didn't make any sense to him. Hell, it probably would have made more sense if she simply hadn't said anything at all. "W-what does that mean? What's a Shadow? Why was it...?" He trailed off, and ran his badly shaking hand through his hair. "...Just what the hell is going on?"

Before she had a chance to answer, Feng's voice rang out. "Oh. Oh, fuck me."

They both turned towards him. "Feng?" Shiranui asked, "what's wrong?"

The boy didn't answer with words. Instead, he simply gestured forward, towards the street.

Kei followed his finger along with Shiranui, and felt horror seize him.

They were still in the same spot they'd walked into just minutes ago, but... everything past the mouth of the alley was wrong.

A ruined and twisted city stretched for miles around them, silent and devoid of all life. The streets were a jagged mess of cracked and broken asphalt, with cars lying ruined all around, and occasionally impaled on spikes of concrete. Buildings jutted out from the ground at awkward angles, looking more like withering black skeletons reaching towards the sky. Some structures looked relatively unharmed, but even they were perverted with bizarre geometry; buildings lying upside down or sideways, some with sections simply sticking out like _jenga_ pieces.

But the sky was the most horrifying part of it all. In the distance, Kei could see sections of the mainland's skyscrapers simply _floating_ in the air, along with some nearby chunks of pavement. Clouds rushed overhead at absurd speeds, rippling and tearing apart mid-flight as they formed a vortex around the sun. A sun which shone with an eerie _blue_ light.

"What...?" Every sight boggled the mind and defied all logic.

"Naomi, is he alright?"

Kei slumped against the wall, staring into the whirling sky with an almost hypnotized gaze.

"Kamiya?"

His throat felt dry. He tried to rationalize the sights; it... it really shouldn't have been this shocking. Every night, he was surrounded by a barren gray world, and dueled a swordsman. This sort of insanity shouldn't have been affecting him this much, but... But they were _dreams_ , just figments of his imagination without any bearing on reality. Everything he saw now was real, and that made it all the worse.

"Hey, Kamiya-kun!"

His teeth began to chatter, but not from cold. As he continued looking into the alien environment, a million different thoughts started running through his head at high speeds. _'What is this...? When did I...? How can it...?'_ Slowly, his mind began to devolve into a whirl. His heart began to pound so fiercely it made him feel nauseous.

"Dude! Dude, chill!"

The already heavy atmosphere began to feel even worse, like it had grown hands and was now deliberately strangling him. Kei began to take deep, shuddering gulps of air, and the hands tightened further. Some detached, rational part of his mind registered the fact that he was hyperventilating, but there was nothing he could do to stop himself. All his fear and confusion overwhelmed him. He couldn't feel his fingers, still clutching at his hair, or any part of him, for that matter. It all felt numb and out of his control, like it belonged to another person entirely, and he was just—

A sharp cracking sound exploded against his ear, and his head abruptly jerked to the right, tearing his eyes away from the mad sky. It took Kei a few seconds to register the painful stinging on his cheek. He turned his head, and met Shiranui's eyes.

"Kamiya," she said, "this is neither the time nor place to lose your cool."

"Did... did you just slap me?" Belatedly, he realized that was a pretty dumb question. She was right in front of him with a hand raised, his cheek hurt, and two plus two equaled four.

Regardless, she dignified the question with a shrug. "You were having a panic attack."

"That's not how you deal with a panic attack!"

Shiranui shrugged again. "Well, it worked, didn't it?"

"That's not the..." Kei trailed off with a groan. Surprisingly enough, she was actually right—her slap did manage to snap him out of his trance. Kei closed his eyes and rested his head against the alley wall, taking a few moments to steady his breathing. He wasn't calm—there was no way any one could be calm after seeing... whatever this was—but he was still able to bring himself under control. Kei opened his eyes again and asked, "Where are we? What is this place?"

Shiranui turned away from him, and looked towards the distance. "It's... not easy to explain, Kamiya. To put it simply, you could say that this is a reality created and shaped by people's cognition. Or at least, that's what my mother told me."

"Cognition? What does that mean?"

Shiranui nodded. "Thoughts, feelings, your perception of reality. Most people live their entire lives seeing only what they want see, hearing only what they want to hear. But here," she said, gesturing around them, "everything that people want to deny and hide from is given a form here. That's why everything looks... well, the way it does."

"So... this is like an imaginary world controlled by thoughts? Like a dream?"

She very emphatically shook her head at that. "No, if anything it's the opposite, Kamiya. This is the world in its true form."

 _'The world in its true form.'_ Kei let that thought sink in, really digested it in his head. After a few minutes of analyzing it, he still wasn't sure it made much sense to him.

"So," Feng chimed up, "what's our next move, Naomi-chan?"

"Ah, right! We need to contact Headquarters!" She said, bringing her hand to her earpiece. "Yamagishi-san, this is Shiranui, we've just encountered... Ma'am? Hello?" She tapped at the device a few more times, to no avail. She then pulled out the black phone and began fiddling with it. "What the hell?" She muttered after a while. "It... doesn't have a signal."

Feng gave her a surprised look. "Wait, what? I thought these things were supposed to never _not_ have a signal."

"Why do you think I'm so surprised, Feng?" She shot back, ineffectually trying to get the phone working, before sighing and giving up. "Damn, I have a bad feeling about this."

"So, do we go through the tunnels, then?" Feng asked.

She turned and gave the open entrance a long, scrutinizing stare, before finally shaking her head. "No, I don't like our chances in there. Our best bet is to try and find an access point as soon as possible."

Feng gave her a nod. "Lead the way, then, Naomi-chan," he said.

Shiranui nodded back and led them out of the alleyway and through the ruined city. They passed by desolated streets and wrecked cars, by shops, offices, and even an apartment complex, all twisted into caricatures of what they were really supposed to be. Some streets had wrecks of cars stacked high like walls, making all passage impossible, while others simply twisted back into themselves like roundabouts. Over the top of the buildings, Kei spotted the bridge which connected Tatsumi Port Island to the mainland, looking remarkably normal, compared to all the chaotic architecture around it. It was unnerving beyond all belief, but at least Kei was able to process this information without freaking out again.

The three students kept walking for what felt like hours, the silence broken only by the sound of their shoes scuffing against the pavement.

"Shiranui," Kei said, "where're we going now?"

She didn't look towards him as she responded, her eyes constantly scanning their surroundings. "Headquarters, but if we're lucky, we'll find an access point that can take us back to the Surface."

"The Surface? You mean the real world?"

"Yeah. There should be one or two of them somewhere around this area," she said, vaguely gesturing in front of her.

They fell back into a silence which stretched on until Feng abruptly whined, "Aww, damn it!"

Shiranui quickly turned around with her gun drawn. "Feng, what's wrong?!"

His expression quickly turned sheepish as he scratched at his chin and looked away from her. "Oh, uh, nothing. I, uh... just realized I'm probably gonna miss Fajita Night."

"Really, Shaojie?" Shiranui said, giving him a baleful glare. " _Really?_ "

Kei quirked an eyebrow at Feng. "Fajiwhat night?"

"Oh, uh... it's a thing this one restaurant at Frenchtown does. Every Tuesday, they make fajitas at half price. _Fajita Night_ , man," he said, with a bright enthusiastic grin. That grin then fell when he added, "but, considering how long we've been here, I'm probably gonna end up missing it." Feng heaved a deep, forlorn sigh. "Looks like it's no fajitas for me this week..."

"Wait, Tuesday? Feng, today's Mon—"

"Hey," Shiranui interrupted, "do you guys hear that?"

Kei shut his mouth and focused on listening for any strange sounds. Utter silence met his ears. Not even the wind blew here. The only thing he could really hear was his own breathing and heartbeat. Beyond that, there was nothing...

 _'Wait... There's something here...!'_

A low, distorted twang echoed from somewhere in the distance. It was so subtle Kei almost dismissed it as just his ears ringing, but it was just a couple pitches too low. He slowly began to turn, trying to track where the sound was coming from. He caught sigh of movement in the corner of his peripheral vision. "Hey, there's something over there!" He shouted, pointing at a shadowy gap between two buildings.

The noise intensified just as a dark arm erupted from the shadows, followed by another. Twelve massive fingers sank into the buildings' walls, gaining enough grip to pull the rest of the body out from the darkness. The creature that emerged had a flat disc-shaped head, and several tendrils colored green, yellow, and purple sprouted from it and cascaded over its shoulders, giving it the impression of having dreadlocks. The rest of it was disturbingly human-like, and under this lighting, Kei could see that it was actually colored a charcoal black, with dark purple veins running through its entire body. But the proportions were all wrong—The torso was too long, the tree trunk-like arms too large, forcing the creature to hunch over slightly under its own weight as it stepped out into the street. Despite this, its legs were still thick and muscular, elevating the monster to stand more than a story in height. Strangely, one of its legs was bizarrely hypertrophied and colored a pasty white, making its opposite look almost emaciated in comparison.

Kei's breathing stopped entirely, his eyes widening in recognition. "That's... that's the one from..." Unbidden, his left hand twitched, sending jolts of pain through his entire body. _'Toyono. Tetsuo. Megumi. My arm. This monster...!'_ Scattered memories lined up and pieced themselves together in his head. He remembered this. He'd seen this. It was here for _him_.

From the center of its disc-shaped head emerged a single red eye, surrounded by a sickly yellow sclera. The cyclopean iris swiveled madly in its socket, going back, forth, and even inside its own head, before slowing to a halt. The monster's eye slowly rose, and focused on him, and him alone.

A deep, resonant growl rumbled from within its throat. **"KEI."**

* * *

The true D̶e̶m̶o̶n̶'̶s̶ ̶S̶o̶u̶l̶s̶ Capsizing the World starts here, boys. As always, feel free to share your thoughts, criticisms, concerns, what-have-you of the story. I'm always happy to receive feedback.

This chapter was last updated on December 3, 2017.


	11. The World in Its True Form: Part 10

_She had the perfect view from this place. Port Island, the mainland, the ports, the old industrial zone—In her Sense and on the monitors surrounding her, all of Iwatodai was visible to Juno's eyes._

 _So where were they, then?_

 _Where could they possibly have gone to leave her sight?_

 _Shiranui, Feng, and Kamiya had disappeared in a heartbeat, leaving only a hole in a wall in their wake._

 _With no small amount of frustration and resignation, she relinquished her Sense and returned..._

She sat in a comfortable leather chair, in the command center of the Headquarters' sixteenth floor. It was built to be the ideal place for a navigator to work their craft and aid the Operatives out on the field. Soundproofed, well-lit, and featuring large windows facing out towards the city, along with screens connected to CCTV cameras.

A loud buzz of static resonated in her ears. Fuuka Yamagishi stared at the monitors before her, all screens displaying a single message—

 **[SIGNAL LOST]**

She sighed and turned her seat around. "It's no use," she said with a somber shake of her head. "Wherever they are, I can't find them, even with Juno."

"I see…" Mitsuru simply nodded at that, and her expression quickly changed from one of concern to stoic authority. Mitsuru—No, _director Kirijō_ —spoke with a brief and to-the-point tone. "Get into contact with Kotone and organize a search-and-rescue party immediately."

Fuuka nodded. "Right away, ma'am. I'll also—"

"No need to call, I'm already here," a third voice cut in, accompanied by the click and clack of heels against the floor. A young woman approached, accompanied by a pale and skittish looking boy whom Fuuka vaguely recognized.

Her eyes were a bright red, and she wore her auburn hair loosely, allowing it to fall over her shoulders and down her back, decorated only by a set of thin white pins. Kotone Shiomi came to a halt and gave them both a sheepish smile. "Sorry I'm late. I woulda come sooner, but I had to pick up Shimura-kun," she said, gesturing to the boy beside her.

For some reason, Fuuka felt a nagging sensation tickling at the back of her mind at the sight of him.

"Kotone," the director greeted with a nod. "I assume you're already aware of the situation?"

Kotone nodded back. "A Shadow appeared in the First Layer and made off with three trainees, right?"

"Two provisional operatives and a _civilian_ ," the director corrected. "Regardless, it's good that you're here. I need you to assemble a team and recover them post-haste."

"Understood, ma'am."

Fuuka then realized what had been bothering her. "Excuse me," she spoke up, "I have to ask; Shimura-kun, aren't you supposed to be in school?"

The director quirked a brow at that and turned her gaze towards the boy. "That is a rather good question. I believe I ordered that everyone stay put." She looked back at Kotone with a rather frosty expression. "Shiomi… you wouldn't happen to have brought this boy out of the school, would you?"

"A-actually, I was sick this morning, ma'am," the boy stammered out. "S-so, I couldn't make it to school. Um, Shiomi-san came by and picked me up just a little while ago."

"If there's a Shadow roaming around the Surface, it'd be dangerous to just leave these kids on their own, ya know?" Kotone explained. She then added, "besides, I want Shimura-kun to navigate for us."

There was a brief silence following her declaration. The director sighed and pinched her nose. "Shiomi… you want to take an ill, untrained civilian into the Shadow World, is that what you're saying?"

Shimura took a step forward, fiercely shaking his head. "I-I'm fine now…! Please, ma'am, I- I can do this! I can help!"

"I hate to say this, ma'am, but he's right," Fuuka added with a sigh. "Even with Juno, I can't find a single thing. But Shimura-kun was able to find traces of the Shadow that attacked on Friday, wasn't he? If there's even a chance that he could help us… I think we should take it."

It was an unorthodox suggestion, yes, but not exactly unprecedented by any stretch of the imagination. After all, the Shadow Operatives had been built upon unconventional, impulsive choices.

The director didn't respond outwardly; she simply shut her eyes and folded her arms. After several long seconds of deep thought, she finally answered with a nod. "Very well. Make your preparations and head out immediately, Shiomi. We cannot afford to waste a single moment."

"Understood, ma'am," Kotone said with a bow. Shimura mirrored the action before following her out the door.

The director heaved a heavy sigh as she turned back towards the screens. "Don't die on me," she whispered.

* * *

 _Thump Thump Thump_

The silence was overwhelming.

 _Thump Thump Thump_

Every heartbeat blared into her ears like drums and made her back burn.

This was not the first time Naomi had ever encountered a Shadow, but she couldn't help her terror. She had no idea what to do now—How to move next, what the best course of action was, what to even say… At that moment, any form of strategy was beyond her. All the fear she'd been trying to hide until now suddenly remerged, robbing her of all control over her own body and thoughts, impairing her ability to even breathe or blink.

She could do nothing but stand there, frozen before the enemy as it continued to stare unwaveringly at Kamiya. " **KEI,"** it repeated, taking another step out of the shadowy alley it had emerged from.

Then it took another, and another, and another, steadily picking up its pace. The Shadow leant forward and spread its arms behind itself, putting all its weight into its white leg—

And at that instant the limb's musculature rippled, seemingly compressing into itself.

—The Shadow kicked off with an impossible burst of speed, shooting forward like a cannonball.

 _ **Naomi!**_

That sudden shock was enough to snap Naomi out of her stupor. She moved without thinking, leaping forward to wrap her arms around both Feng's and Kamiya's necks, bringing all three of them onto the concrete.

She felt the displaced air rush through her hair as the Shadow passed just overhead, followed by another distorted noise.

' _Barely made it.'_ There had been more than two blocks of distance between it and them, and in a heartbeat, it had already cleared two thirds of that. If she had hesitated for even an instant, Naomi had no doubt that all their lives would have ended. But she didn't waste any time congratulating herself. She quickly freed her arms and rolled over, with her Evoker already in hand.

But somehow, impossibly, the enemy was nowhere to be seen.

Naomi kipped up into a standing position and quickly looked around. There wasn't a single trace of the Shadow ever being there… Except… on the surface of the building right in front of her, there was a smooth crater. Its circumference was larger than her entire body, and oddly enough she felt as if she'd seen something like it before…

"H-hey, what the hell…?" Feng's trembling voice distracted her from her train of thought. Naomi turned and saw both him and Kamiya shakily getting onto their feet. "Where'd it go?!"

Naomi glanced back at the hole for a brief moment before shaking her head. There was no time to waste on speculation. "We need to go before it shows up again," she said.

Feng nodded immediately, but Kamiya simply stood there, trembling slightly. She frowned and shook his shoulder. "Kamiya, c'mon! We're moving!"

He jerked out of his trance and gave her a shaky nod. "R-right, yeah," the boy said.

The three of them dropped all pretenses and simply ran towards where the nearest access point was supposed to be.

But, almost predictably, they barely managed a few meters before the distortion rang against their ears again.

This time, Naomi saw it appear in her peripheral vision, from the shade of large spire of rebar and asphalt. The Shadow ran alongside them, its single eye focusing directly on her, before ducking out of sight just as quickly as it had come. The distorted noise resonated yet again.

"S-shit—! Not this way!" she said, quickly changing directions mid-stride. Feng and Kamiya followed closely in her wake as she led them into a narrower street. Not even halfway across, the Shadow appeared before them again, diverting them into what might have once been a commercial avenue, surrounded by the distorted remains of various stores.

The Shadow just kept coming, again and again, from several impossible angles.

It didn't take long for Naomi to realize that they were being herded somewhere.

Both she and Feng could keep going for quite a while, but Kamiya was already starting to pant and wheeze. If they kept going at this pace, he'd probably collapse from exhaustion in the middle of the street. She sucked her teeth in both annoyance and desperation, her mind whirling in an attempt to find a way out.

 **Through there…!**

She didn't need to think about it twice. Naomi turned towards a nearby storefront and slammed her shoulder against its door, easily knocking it off its hinges and allowing the three of them inside. The interior of the store was almost completely dark, lit only by the open door. From what products Naomi could see, she assumed that it must have been some sort of grocery store back on the Surface.

She leaned against a sundry shelf, taking deep breaths as a sudden feeling of exhaustion fell over her. The stinging sensation on her back lessened, but did not fade, becoming a constant presence on the back of her mind.

It wasn't ideal, but it was much better than being overwhelmed by the pain.

"Oh shit…" Feng said, as he slumped down on the floor next to her. "Holy shit… You… You think we lost it?"

Naomi shook her head. "We should be so lucky…" She then glanced towards Kamiya. To say that he looked terrible would have been an understatement; The transfer student was soaked in sweat and taking deep, shuddering gasps as he pressed his head against a wall, his entire body shuddering.

"Kamiya…"

Now that she had a moment to consider his position, she realized that it must have been a hell of a day for him. She could barely imagine how badly having all these shocks, back to back, could affect a normal person.

Naomi would have felt bad for him, if not for the elephant in the room.

"—Why's the Shadow after you?"

For a split second, the boy froze completely. Then slowly, he raised his head, gray eyes coming into focus as he looked back at her. "W-what're you talking about?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't try to play dumb. The Shadow was looking right at you, it said your name." She walked over to him, forcing him to back up against the wall as she stared him in the eyes. "Don't lie to me, Kamiya—Why is this Shadow after you?"

He tried to keep up the eye contact, but quickly balked and glanced away. "I… I saw it once. Back in my hometown…"

"That how your arm got broken?" she asked, gesturing towards his left arm.

Kamiya nodded and idly began tapping at his cast. "Y'know, for the longest time, I wasn't even sure if that was real, or if I was just going crazy…"

"Hold up," Feng cut in, "where are you from Kamiya?"

"Me? I'm from Toyono, a town near Osaka."

"Osaka…?" he echoed, furrowing his brow."—Wait, are you saying the Shadow followed you from Osaka to _here?_ "

That gave them pause. She met Feng's eyes, and saw that he too felt the confusion and fear.

"That's…" Naomi couldn't formulate a proper response to that. Having a Shadow pursue a person wasn't unheard of, but...the sheer level of tenacity to track someone over such a distance, through what was apparently a long period of time? As far as she knew, that was unprecedented.

Kamiya spoke up. "Then… did they know about this?"

"They?"

"Kiyomi-sensei," he clarified, "and that director person he was talking about. The way you guys are going about this, it sounds like they knew the, uh… Shadow was coming, and wanted to get me out of the way."

' _Could that be it?'_ Naomi pondered on that for a moment, before finally shaking her head, lips pursed in thought. If the director's goal was to keep Kamiya safe, it would have been much more effective to simply assign actual Operatives to protect him. Or perhaps even sent out a strike team to intercept the Shadow before it became a threat on the Surface, if they already knew it was incoming. A myriad different things could have been done, but instead they'd sent out two provisional operatives with vague instructions to safeguard a civilian.

And this, in and of itself, was practically a suicide mission.

"This doesn't make any sense… why put us in danger? Why not tell us you were being targeted?" The entire scenario was so damn incongruous with itself it almost made her head hurt just trying to think about it.

Before the conversation could continue, the distorted noise echoed once more outside, distressingly close to their hiding spot.

Almost simultaneously, they pressed themselves against the walls and remained completely motionless, not even daring to breathe.

Tense moments passed, punctuated by the loud stomping the Shadow produced as it walked just outside the door. Slowly but steadily, the footsteps reduced in volume and faded away.

Naomi released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her hands felt clammy, her shoulders trembled, the damned scar wouldn't stop burning—!

 **Believer…**

A soothing warmth caressed her mind. Naomi sighed, allowing herself to be calmed. "We've wasted enough time here," she said. "Kamiya, Feng, I've got a plan. It's… not the best, but it's all we've got to work with."

Slowly, they nodded for her to continue.

"First of all, did you notice how the Shadow moved?"

"Well, yeah," Feng said, "it was fast as hell. The thing was pretty much flying all over the place."

She nodded. "Right. Not only that, but it kept coming at us from places it couldn't possibly have been in. One moment it moves to the left, the next it pops up again to our right… I think it's safe to say that it can teleport."

Feng's eyebrows shot up, almost reaching his hairline. His mouth opened, as if he was about to dismiss the idea as impossible, before quickly twisting into a grimace. "Damn, yeah… That would explain how it was coming out of nowhere. Hell, that even explains how we ended up here in the first place." He trailed off with a sigh, hanging his head and nervously twiddling his fingers. "Well, shit. That really complicates things."

She nodded and folded her arms. "So this is where we stand—The enemy is capable of teleportation, extreme speed, travel across the layers, and God knows what else. Feng, you and I might stand a chance against it, but…" She trailed off with a frown, casting a glance at Kamiya. "Kamiya-kun, I want you to start running as soon as I give the word."

Her statement was met with dual squawks of confusion. Naomi ignored them and continued, "Don't take this the wrong way, but it'll be difficult to for us to fight the Shadow if we have to worry about covering for you. With you gone, we'll be able to focus on it." Naomi tried to make that sound polite, but even she realized that it was just a roundabout way of telling him that he was a burden. "Go to Headquarters—you'll be safe there. Feng and I will stay and take care of it."

Feng spoke up immediately, vigorously waving his arms in denial. "Whoa, whoa, hold on, Naomi! You want to send him out _alone?_ We're in the middle of... hell, who even knows what Layer we're in! The Shadows're gonna rip the guy apart!"

Naomi couldn't help but chuckle at that. "You're not very observant, are you, Feng-kun?" She shook her head with a small smirk. "This Layer's empty. If there were any other Shadows, we would've already run into them. Hell, they would have been right here in this very store."

"Wha…?" She could practically see the gears turning in his head as he digested that information. "But that's not how… That doesn't…!" He trailed off with a groan. "What the hell, man, none of this makes any sense!"

"My thoughts exactly." She sighed. "Look, I know it's not perfect, but… it's all we've got right now." Naomi then turned towards Kamiya. "So, do you think you can do it?"

Kamiya looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn't have the energy for that. None of them did, really. In the end, he just glanced away bashfully and shrugged. "I- I'm… not too good with directions. And besides, I can't run very fast."

Naomi shrugged and tried to make her smile somewhat reassuring. She wasn't really sure she succeeded at that. "That's fine. All you need to do is head towards the biggest building in the skyline. And don't worry about speed—I'll take care of that for you."

This drew a curious look from him, but he didn't raise any further questions.

She turned back to Feng. "Ready?"

He responded with something halfway between a shrug and a nod. "As can be."

"Right, then." Naomi cracked her knuckles, unholstered her Evoker, and stepped out into the light. "Let's get this show on the road."

An eerie silence fell over them as they slowly walked through the empty streets. Both she and Feng kept their Evokers on hand, ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. Her eyes constantly darted around, taking in every sight, examining every nook and cranny that could possibly conceal the enemy.

Several minutes passed without incident, and eventually they reached a big, open intersection in what was probably _Rue de Gekko_ , at the very center of Port Island. Naturally, that was when the air warped and the enemy made its presence known.

The Shadow leapt down from a nearby rooftop and landed on its white leg, which rippled and flexed, seemingly absorbing the impact. It tilted its head upon seeing that the three of them hadn't tried to flee from it, and let its eye rove over them all. First Feng, then Naomi, and finally Kamiya. It tilted its head the other way, rolling its shoulders as it repeated his name, almost mockingly. " **KEI."**

Naomi didn't need to look at him to know that the boy had stiffened up once more. Her hand darted out and clamped around his shoulder. "Focus, Kamiya," she said.

Slowly, her other hand raised, bringing the Evoker to her temple. The steel barrel felt like a cold kiss against her skin, sending goosebumps throughout her whole body, and finally quenching the burning on her back.

 **Believer… the time has come.**

"Wha—? Shiranui, what're you doing?!"

From her peripheral vision, she noticed Kamiya's bewildered look. She couldn't really blame him—using an Evoker looked an awful lot like an attempt at suicide.

The eye flicked over her once more, curious, but unconcerned. Unafraid.

It underestimated her.

She should have found that to be insulting, but Naomi could only feel amused;

It didn't understand. So she would just have to show it.

Naomi shut her eyes, and reached out to the one who stood by her side.

"Come to me," she whispered, squeezing the trigger.

Memories that were not her own rushed throughout Naomi's mind.

* * *

/"No," she whispered. She hadn't even noticed that her legs had given out until she was halfway to the ground.

Pierre caught her, his arms wrapping around her shoulders, trembling as he tried to hold back his own tears.

Shakily, she managed to ask, "And… and the babe?"

Her brother didn't respond.

"Oh… Catherine…"/

* * *

 **I am Thou, and Thou art I...**

* * *

/"The girl says she speaks with the Lord."

This drew loud, mocking laughter from the assembled lords, but king Charles' smirk didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Go on, then," he said, raising a hand to command their silence. "What message has he for me?"/

* * *

 **In the Lord's name, I have taken up arms.**

* * *

/The jeers of the crowd were almost deafening, but she didn't hear them in the slightest.

Jeanne cast her eyes skyward, frantic, searching for any sign.

"Save me!" she cried.

No response came, and the heat intensified./

* * *

From deep within Naomi's conscious, she came.

 **By the grace of his Messengers, have I gained purpose.**

She was ethereal in her perfection, like a statue Michelangelo or Rodin would have sculpted themselves. Her skin was as pale as alabaster, and her silver armor gleamed beautifully even under the blue sun's light. Draped over her shoulders was a shimmering cape of blue, white, and red.

 **I am the Maiden of Orleans.**

In her right hand, she held a sabre, sleek and basket-hilted. It was a weapon that had never spilled blood in its entire existence, had never known what it meant to hate. A weapon that, in spite of its very purpose, was wielded in peace.

Her long hair held a bright, platinum tone. Her left eye was a deep blue, while in place of her right eye, a white lily was in full bloom.

 **I am Jeanne D'Arc.**

The saber came forth, pointed directly at the Shadow's eye.

 **And I shall guide all through the Virtuous Way**

For a moment, time seemed to stand completely still. All eyes were focused on Jeanne, watching her with either awe or fear.

Naomi felt a thrill of energy run down her arm and pass on to Kamiya. She squeezed his shoulder to get his attention.

"Go," she said.

Kamiya's eyes turned towards her, staring dumbly at nothing. "Huh…?"

"Did I stutter?! Go!"

That was enough to snap him out of it. Kamiya gave her a nod and took off, too fast for him to handle. His new speed disoriented him briefly, causing him to stumble and nearly fall, but he managed to get out of sight nonetheless.

The boy's escape did not go unnoticed by the Shadow. " **HOLD IT!"** it roared, putting its weight onto its white leg, preparing to take off after him.

That wouldn't do.

Jeanne's hand flicked in its direction, and a split second later, the air around the Shadow exploded.

The enemy shrieked in agony as the flames seared its flesh, but it still had the presence of mind to drop onto the pavement and roll to put them out. The eye wandered back and forth between Naomi and her Persona, narrowing with rage. " **BITCH!"**

"You poor thing," she cooed, giving the Shadow a wide, toothy grin. "Didn't your mother ever teach you it's rude to insult women?" Gently, Jeanne touched the ground beside her, raising the saber once more. "Your fight is with us."

* * *

"Ah…! Hah…!"

Twisted buildings, wrecked cars, and spikes of concrete. Too-wide, almost agoraphobic streets, and cramped, claustrophobic alleyways. The distorted Port Island disappeared into a mess of blurs. Whatever Shiranui had done to him granted Kei speeds he could never have dreamed of. Each step propelled him forward dozens of meters.

But as amazing as it was, it was also disorienting as all hell, and he had tripped over his own feet more times than he could count, forcing Kei to slow down to a more manageable pace.

He passed underneath an overpass, and the ground ran out beneath him. Kei tumbled forward and fell face-first into a ditch. His ears rang, making his head throb almost unbearably. He raised a hand to his forehead, and found it to be slick with blood.

"Wha… what the hell?" Shakily, Kei brought himself to his feet and climbed out, turning back to examine what exactly he'd fallen into. He stared into a large crater, placed right in the middle of the street, and covered by the shade of the overpass. It was smooth and perfectly circular in diameter, like it had been carved out of the ground with some sort of precise tool.

On a whim, he glanced around the street he was in, and found a multitude of holes much like this one, all poking out of alleys, beneath the shades of buildings, entrances into underground walkways. All of the places from which the Shadow had repeatedly appeared.

His mind made the connection immediately. ' _Is this how it's able to teleport?'_ Or rather, was this what was left behind each time it teleported?

But how did that even work? Did it just carve out a section of the ground each time? Why were they all exclusively in dark spots?

He shook his head, snapping out of it. He didn't have time to waste pondering the monster and its abilities. His eyes darted up towards the skyline, focusing on the large building in the distance.

If he could just make it there, he would be safe.

Intellectually, Kei knew that this was the correct choice—Whatever the hell was going on, whatever that monster was, Feng and Shiranui clearly knew much more about it than he did. It only made sense that he should follow their instructions and let them handle it. All that was left for him to do now was to reach the tower, and the nightmare would be over.

 **Are...this...**

 **...brother?**

 **...don't...afraid...**

Then… why did his body refuse to move? Why did he want to turn the other way and return?

 **You can...even !**

 **avenge...enemy.**

Like a parasite, the intrusive thought burrowed into his mind and refused to leave. And against his better judgement, Kei glanced over his shoulder, back towards where Feng and Shiranui were currently fighting. If he started running now, with this boosted speed, he could...

...Could...

He shook his head again. Just what could he possibly accomplish? Kei didn't have some sort of crazy power like Shiranui. He wasn't strong, or brave, or clever—He was just some scrawny country kid with a broken arm. He'd only get in their way, distract them, possibly even get all three of them killed. There was absolutely nothing he could do.

He turned back towards the tower. There was only one path, and it was clear. Slowly, his body began to cooperate, and with shaky steps, began advancing towards safety.

 **Again?**

That thought stopped him completely.

In his mind's eye, the scenario changed. The distorted afternoon's sky became a moonless night. The hulking corpses of buildings around him became tall trees.

 _'I am thou,'_ someone whispered, _'and thou art I.'_

The question posed itself before him once more.

 **Again?**

"It… it doesn't matter…" Kei said to no one, trying to dismiss the insane idea. He didn't know neither Feng nor Shiranui. They were just classmates, casual acquaintances. Moreover, it was clear that they could defend themselves. He, on the other hand, didn't even stand a chance. So it only made sense that he should run away…

...Again.

Even from this distance, the sounds of battle—gunshots, roaring explosions, space itself being warped around the monster—echoed clearly.

No…

Kei Kamiya clenched his hand tightly and made his decision.

* * *

 _Persona Compendium:_

Jeanne D'arc

XI—Strength

 _A French heroine, known as 'the Maid of Orleans.' At the age of sixteen, she received a vision from God, and took a stance to save France, playing a pivotal role in ending the Hundred Years' War. However, at the age of nineteen, she was captured and burned at the stake under accusations of witchcraft. This conviction was later overturned, and Jeanne was eventually canonized, becoming a Catholic saint._

* * *

This update would have come out a lot sooner, but I got sidetracked ever since this one ginger introduced me to the crack pipe that is Final Fantasy XIV. Thanks a lot, Commander Fuccboivin.

Also, I fucked up super hard and accidentally switched Kotone Shiomi's surname with that of Niko Kiyomi's, class 2-B's teacher. That's all fixed now, but I'm still gonna take the L, since it might have caused some undue confusion.

Also, I'm thinking of doing a bit of house cleaning in this version, maybe split the first chapter into four. Y'know, just the way it was supposed to be in the first place.


	12. The World in Its True Form: Part 11

"I'll make this quick."

The words barely left Naomi's lips before Jeanne moved. The saber swished forward, and simultaneously, a tiny ember manifested itself right where the Shadow was. The enemy, however, was smart enough to know not to stay put. By the time the wisp of _agi_ combusted less than a second later, the Shadow was already on the move, as were Naomi and Jeanne.

A dozen more embers appeared in its path, too many for it to possibly avoid. Between the bright flashes and explosions, the intersection became a veritable light show. The Shadow swerved to and fro in an effort to avoid the flames, before turning towards Naomi and briefly leaning back on its haunches. The Shadow sprang forward like a coiled spring, rearing an arm back as it approached her.

Jeanne was there to meet its charge, raising her saber to block its massive arm. The Shadow's strength was tremendous, more than enough to push Jeanne back and make Naomi's arms ache. However, the enemy had made the mistake of bringing itself within her range. The saber's blade bit deeply into its forearm, and Jeanne used that as leverage to place her open palm against its chest.

"Agi!"

With a sharp crackle, the enemy was suddenly engulfed in flames. It reared back and flailed around in surprise and pain, and while it was dazed—

"Persona!"

 **I am Thou!**

—A massive form flew through the air, fast as a cannonball, and smashed an armored leg into the Shadow's flat head. The brutal flying kick blew the Shadow away, sending it skidding far along the asphalt, coming to a halt only when it crashed against a concrete spire.

 **Thou art I!**

Her helper flipped around in midair and landed on its feet, casually rolling its shoulders. At a first glance, it appeared to be a large, blue-skinned man, but closer observation revealed that it was anything but.

 **The heavens cry out!**

 **The Earth cries out!**

 **Humanity cries out!**

 **They cry for me to defeat evil!**

The organic parts of his body were muscular and colored a deep, ocean blue. However, large portions of its body were mechanical in nature, replacing its arms, legs, and joints with bright gold prosthetics. He wore a white, ceremonial dress, somewhat reminiscent of a karateka's gi, decorated with gold floral designs, and held up by a red sash around his waist.

The lower half of his face was uncovered, baring a square jawline with a strip of hair on his chin, while his eyes and nose were hidden beneath a gold avian mask. Said mask looped around the back of his head and served as a hair ornament, keepings his dark hair tied back into a bun.

The Persona crossed his arms and turned his head towards the Shadow, booming,

 **Hear me—**

 **I am Rama!**

 **The seventh Avatar!**

"Feng," Naomi said, cocking an eyebrow as her classmate jogged up next to her. "Nice of you to finally join in."

He shrugged in response. "Hey, I didn't wanna steal your spotlight, Naomi-chan. 'Sides, I kinda wanted to see how far that sucker'd fly if I blindsided 'em." He extended his arm and raised a finger and a thumb, hemming and hawing as he pretended to measure the distance between them and the Shadow. "Yep," he said with a laugh, "I'd say that's a new record!"

She rolled her eyes at that before turning back towards the Shadow. Slowly, the enemy removed itself from the wreck and got back onto its feet. Much to her chagrin, it barely looked injured, despite Jeanne's searing flames and Rama's surprise attack. "You can brag about it later," she said, reaching forward to put a hand on his shoulder. "Stick close to it—don't give it a chance to chance to teleport again." Once again, the energy of _Sukukaja_ ran down down her arm and entered his body, enhancing his speed and reflexes.

"One ass-beating comin' right up," Feng said with a nod. "Rama!"

His Persona exhaled, briefly expelling steam from vents along his shoulders before shooting towards the enemy like a rocket. The Shadow didn't hesitate to meet his charge. It kicked off with its white leg, closing the distance between the two of them almost immediately.

Two arms smashed into each other with a powerful crash. Feng winced and clenched his jaw, but did not waver as both his Persona and the Shadow squared up and began throwing punches. Rama ducked under a left hook and struck back with a powerful kick to the Shadow's head, as if he was going for a seventy-yard field goal, only to get hit by a jab before he could back away.

It was remarkable how clever the Shadow looked in that instant—It didn't simply fire off attacks like a wild animal. Rather, it fought strategically, carefully measuring its punches while also ducking and weaving under Rama's strikes, and simply weathering the ones it couldn't avoid. In that regard, the Shadow was much like a heavyweight boxer.

But if the Shadow was a heavyweight, then Rama, with his smaller frame, was a featherweight. However, such a difference in weight-class brought several consequences with it. He had a shorter wingspan, less overall destructive power, and he probably wasn't as durable either. Yet, despite being obviously weaker, he proved to be a match for the enemy.

Rama faced the Shadow head on, blocking and parrying blows that could shatter concrete, and retaliated with his own, all within the space of a few seconds.

With a gleam of silver, Jeanne swooping in towards the Shadow's flank. With Rama being as close to the Shadow as he currently was, Naomi couldn't reliably use fire without the risk of hitting him—and by extension, Feng—on accident. Thus, she sent Jeanne for a charge while it was facing away from her. No matter how sturdy the damn thing was, it sure as hell wouldn't be able to shrug off a sword through the head.

However, the Shadow wasn't about to let itself get blindsided again. Its eye caught sight of Jeanne just at the right moment, and without missing a beat, wrapped a dreadlock around Rama's arm, yanking him into Jeanne's path.

Naomi managed to point her blade away, but wasn't fast enough to avoid their collision. Both she and Feng groaned, feeling the sympathetic pain as their Personae faded away.

The Shadow let out a sound somewhere between a grunt and a laugh, before beginning to jog away.

"Hey!" Feng shouted, raising his Evoker again. "Get your ass back here!"

His Persona shot forward once more, his fist rearing back with the low roar of its whirring gears. The Shadow didn't meet his charge again, and instead opted to evade, jumping away just as the punch was thrown.

Rama's strike didn't touch the Shadow—it didn't even come close. However, the sheer force behind it was more than enough to displace the air. A blast of force exploded out from his fist, like buckshot from a shotgun, and slammed into the Shadow's back, propelling it further away. It crashed into a building, breaking through its wall and landing inside.

A wide grin began to spread across Feng's face, only to fade with a muttered curse when they heard the air warping from within.

"On your guard," Naomi said, as she sidled closer standing back to back with him at the very center of the intersection. "It can come at us from any angle."

She tried to put up a strong front, to sound confident in order to hide her uncertainty. This entire fight had hinged upon them denying the enemy its ability to teleport, and now that its advantage was back in play, all bets were off. Apart from the distinctive noise it emitted, there was no way to figure out where from or when it would strike.

Then, there was also the off-chance that it may have chosen to ignore them entirely and try to go after its original target. By now, Kamiya should have already found an access point and safely made his was back to the surface, but…

Naomi couldn't quite dispel the traitorous 'what ifs' from her mind.

Several long, tense moments passed before the distortion filled the air again. Naomi whirled around immediately, facing towards the sound's source. "Feng!" She called out, bringing her Evoker to her head.

"I got it! Persona!" With a bang, Rama materialized just as the Shadow shot out from a nearby building's open front.

Feng's Persona brought his arms up just in time to block the incoming strike, but its strength was simply too great for Rama to weather.

"—Agh! D-damn!"

The Shadow's fist smashed through Rama's guard, forcing him back while it backed off to teleport again. Naomi summoned Jeanne and launched a fireball at its retreating form, but the enemy was long gone before her attack could even reach it. Rama's arms crackled and smoked from the damage, but he held fast and weathered blow after blow as the Shadow kept coming again and again.

She briefly considered trying to catch it with another fireball, but quickly dismissed the idea. The Shadow was too fast for her to accurately aim, and she'd only tire herself out by mindlessly firing off after it. So Naomi placed Jeanne alongside Rama, trying to help him withstand the assault, even as they were slowly pushed back towards the mouth of an alley.

Trying to shoot the Shadow down was a futile effort, and it was too fast to reliably intercept. What they needed, more than anything, was some way to prevent it from teleporting again.

"Feng," Naomi said, "I need you to—"

The air distorted again, cutting Naomi off mid-sentence. She spun immediately, expecting to see the Shadow closing in on them, but instead saw it standing a ways off, heaving the wreck of a rusted car over its shoulders.

"Wha—? Oh, come on!" Feng cried out as he dove to one side, while Naomi leapt for the other. A moment later, the car smashed into the space they had just been occupying, with Naomi and Feng standing at either side of it.

She glanced over the wreck towards Feng and asked, "Everything in one piece?"

"Peachy," he said. He began to move towards her, but the moment he took the first step, the shadows in the alley next to him stirred. Naomi felt her heart stop in her chest as the air reverberated with distortion, and the Shadow began to materialize right next to Feng.

"Behind you—!"

He whirled around just in time to see it coming and raise his arms, putting up a futile resistance against the enemy's overwhelming might. The Shadow exploded out of the alley, leaving a hole in a wall in its wake. Its fist raced forward and slammed directly into Feng with the force of a truck. The resulting _crunch_ his bones made as they were crushed was sickening.

"Shaojie…!"

The impact must have killed him immediately—That realization felt like a punch in the gut to her as she watched his body fly back dozens of meters, sliding across the rough pavement, before stopping motionless in the middle of the street.

For a brief moment, a girl's face appeared in her mind, green eyes bloodshot and brimming with tears. Sayaka would definitely cry. Idly, Naomi wondered how she could possibly face her friend after this, and tell her that Shaojie was...

Was…

 _"Your abilities are limited."_

She recalled a distant summer day, blackened by smoke and ash. A ruined home, a life almost lost…

Had it really been for nothing…?

 _"Your abilities are limited."_

Her mother's words echoed in her mind. Naomi realized now that they hadn't been meant to belittle her, or to make her doubt herself—Those words were a blunt, inescapable truth. The definitive proof that she was...

* * *

/ _Save me!_

 _Save me!_

 _Save me!_

 _Save me!_

 _Save me!_

 _Save me!_

 _Save me!_

 _Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me!_ _Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me!_ _Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me! Save me!_

 _ **PLEASE!**_

 _ **SAVE ME!**_ _/_

* * *

No tears came.

Whatever shock or sorrow she may have felt now solidified within her, and turned into anger—A blind, desperate rage against everything and everyone.

Rage against Mitsuru Kirijō for sending them into this death trap.

 _"Your abilities are limited."_

Rage against Kei Kamiya for being its prey.

 _"Your abilities are limited."_

Rage against Shaojie Feng for getting himself killed.

 _"Your abilities are limited."_

Rage against the Shadow for killing him.

 _"Your abilities are limited."_

And rage against Naomi Shiranui, for her limits, for allowing him to die, for the fact that his murderer still wasn't dead at her feet.

The anger festered and burned within her, even as she brought up her Evoker and turned towards the enemy, who stood by admiring its work. _"Disappear!"_ she snarled, and this time there was no delay. Jeanne's flames enveloped it immediately, drawing agonized screams from the Shadow.

The smell of its burning flesh wasn't at all unpleasant. Rather, it smelled much like pork being cooked. The scent was somewhat enticing, and that very fact was disturbing in its own right.

The Shadow tried to run away, its body spasming terribly with pain, but Naomi didn't relent at all. Jeanne's saber lashed out again and again, becoming a blur of glinting silver, creating more flames to engulf the enemy. The Shadow stopped trying to run and instead whirled around, its eye widened in mad desperation, and launched five of its dreadlocks towards Naomi.

"Jeanne!"

Her Persona was by her side immediately, cutting the incoming tendrils apart in mid-flight. However, a single one of them managed to snake past her defensive barrage and closed in towards Naomi at a blistering speed. She rolled away from its path, avoiding being skewered by the tendril, but it still managed to knock the Evoker out of her grasp, sending it plinking off into the distance.

She understood then what its plan was. Without the Evoker, Naomi was now running on a time limit—The moment Jeanne faded, she would not be able to summon her again. Naomi was confident that she could try to extend the duration of her Persona's form, but… for how long was anyone's guess. She'd already depleted herself quite badly bombarding the enemy with fire, so it could be anywhere from a mere three to possibly twelve seconds before Naomi could no longer sustain Jeanne. Anything more than that, and she would run a very real risk of complete exhaustion, essentially guaranteeing her own death.

"—Five seconds, then," she said. "I'll kill you in the next five seconds."

A deep, mocking chuckle emerged from the Shadow. **"GOOD LUCK,"** it responded.

Jeanne fired, and the Shadow moved.

The pavement shattered under the enemy's weight as it propelled itself away with its white leg. It re-emerged within the same heartbeat, leaping at her from whatever hole it had crawled out of this time.

 _'One-Mississippi.'_

Her Persona surged forward, challenging the enemy's advance without hesitation. The area around Jeanne and the Shadow became the center of a fatal whirlwind. Gleaming steel and black arms collided dozens of times within the blink of an eye, each strike intended to be the last.

The enemy didn't hold back in the slightest, even though it was assured of its victory. It had paid for the error of underestimating Naomi and Jeanne before, and it would not do so again. The Shadow made it a point to keep the fight in constant motion, denying Jeanne the advantage of her fire. All it needed now was one hit—a single, solid blow to dispel her Persona and end the battle.

 _'Two-Mississippi.'_

The saber collided against the Shadow's fist, and though she suffered no actual injury, pain shot through Naomi's arms. Jeanne D'arc was strong—it'd be disingenuous to say otherwise—but like Rama, she too paled in comparison to the Shadow's superior might. Thus, trying to face it at close quarters, especially in her current condition, was the height of foolishness.

But Naomi wasn't relying solely on physical strength.

The saber glowed for an instant, almost blinding in its brilliance, as the _agilao_ stored within its blade expanded—And then burst.

 _'Three-Mississippi.'_

The explosion itself was powerful, much more so than any of the _agi_ Naomi previously thrown out. She could practically feel whatever indeterminate amount of time Jeanne had left drain away, but it was well worth it. The blast badly scorched the Shadow and the resulting flash briefly blinded it, enough for Naomi to end it.

It was simple, really.

If she remained on the defensive, she would die.

If she spent the rest of her energy, she would die.

If she tried to conserve it, she would die.

If the clock ran out, she would die.

 _"Your abilities are limited."_

Thus, this was the only viable path Naomi could take—To meet offense with offense, and end the battle with a single, decisive blow.

Jeanne lined up the saber and rushed in to run through the Shadow's head.

For Shaojie.

For herself.

 _"You abilities are_ — _"_

"I am not—!"

* * *

/Countless eyes turned towards her, staring with outright disbelief. Some of the men fell onto their knees with prayers upon their lips.

Despite her injuries, J̶e̶a̶n̶n̶e Naomi smiled to them and raised the bloodied banner heavensward.../

* * *

"What…?

Naomi's charge came to a halt. She looked down at her hands. Instead of fair, uncovered palms, she found herself looking at brilliant silver gauntlets. One held a saber, sleek and basket hilted, and just a few centimeters away from the Shadow's eyelid.

'How did…? What?'

And then the Shadow struck out, blindly throwing a punch which caught her square in the face—

"Guh—!" Naomi's head abruptly jerked back as the Shadow struck out, blindly throwing a punch which caught Jeanne square in the face and immediately dispelled her. Instinctively, she raised a hand to her nose then brought it back before her, now sticky with fresh blood. "...The hell?!"

She stared at her bloodied hand, trying and failing to understand what had just happened.

"Get back—!" Someone shouted.

The warning came abruptly, but Naomi managed to obey it out of instinct, backing away from the enemy. Just a split second afterwards, a car smashed into the space she'd just been occupying with a loud crash. It sparked as it slid along the pavement, before finally slamming into the Shadow and pinning it against a wall under its weight.

Naomi quickly whirled around, and saw impossibility itself.

Standing there before her, hunched over and leaning heavily against a bent light pole, was Shaojie. What remained of his uniform was in tatters—his coat and blazer were nothing more than a ripped and bloodied mess—his face was badly bruised, and blood dripped liberally from the various cuts and scrapes he'd received. Standing next to him, Rama was similarly damaged, sparking and emanating smoke from his ripped metal plating, and bleeding some golden ichor from his flesh. His golden mask was cracked in half, allowing his black hair to fall loosely, and uncovering a single brown eye.

But none of that mattered.

He was alive—Somehow, impossibly, Shaojie was alive.

"Sha- Feng…!"

"Do it!" he screamed, snapping her out of her thoughts as he reared back and threw something at her.

She caught the 'something' with both hands, immediately recognizing it by its familiar weight—an Evoker. She then looked back to Shaojie, still shocked by his appearance. "H-huh…?"

"Just do it!" he repeated, frantically pointing to the space behind her.

Naomi's eyes narrowed as she turned again, her mind sliding back into clarity. The enemy struggled with the weight of the car, futilely attempting to push it off. Its eye flitted towards her, looking at her with what might be described as panic.

Jeanne D'arc materialized once more, raising her sword aloft.

 **"NOT YET—!"**

"Just… Die already."

The air crackled once as Jeanne swung down, before everything exploded with a blinding flash. With her work done, the Maiden of Orleans dissipated.

A deep silence permeated the—

"YES!" Feng shouted, throwing as many middle fingers as he could muster up into the air with a loud and very elongated, "Fuuuuuuuuuck yooooooou!"

—Scratch that.

"Fuck your life! And fuck your grandma that's dyin' in the hospital! I hope that old bitch _croaks_!" And with that, his strength finally left him, and Feng fell back-first onto the ground. "Ohhhh… holy shit… we're the best…"

Naomi breathed slowly, taking soft inhales and exhales as she lowered herself onto the ground, leaning back to rest her head against a wall.

"I… I thought you were dead." The words slipped out before she could fully process them.

In hindsight, it had been hasty of her to jump to that conclusion—Whatever else he may be, Shaojie Feng was not some fragile porcelain figure who would shatter at a slight tap.

But... the sound of his bones being pulverized…

The way he just slumped over lifelessly, in a puddle of his own blood…

How could she possibly not fear for him?

"Naomi-chan, listen to me…" Slowly, Feng raised his head and met her eyes. He laughed, smiling softly as he said, "...When we get outta here, I'm eating nothing but Mexican food for, like, a month."

…She wasn't really sure how to respond to that.

She wasn't sure if she even could without ending up trying to kill him herself.

So she just sighed and let him have his moment. Naomi closed her eyes, resting her head back, and just letting the tension lift itself off her shoulders. This… this had turned out alright in the end. She wasn't sure why they'd been out here, or what would happen once they returned. And hell, she may not have been a proper Shadow Operative, but still; The enemy was dead. She, Feng, and Kamiya were all safe. Mission accomplished.

And for that, Naomi allowed herself a small, satisfied smile. "I am not limited, mother…"

So naturally, that was when a distorted chord resonated through the air once again.

"Oh, fuck off," Naomi whispered, more with exasperation than any other emotion. Cracking her eyes open, she looked to her right. There, the still smoldering car Feng had just thrown was conspicuously missing both its front half, and the monster it had just been on top of. To her left, the enemy reappeared, falling onto all fours. It glanced at them both, ever cautious as it slowly dragged itself onto its feet, using a nearby wall for support. Nearly all of its body was marred by grievous burns, but that was of little comfort, considering the fact that it was still alive. "Goddammit, just what the hell are you made of?"

Both she and Feng struggled onto their feet, ready and willing to continue the fight, though Naomi knew it was a futile effort. The battle had left them wounded, Feng specially so. Simply remaining upright was proving to be a challenge, the constant use of their Personae had left them drained, and on top of it all, they only had a single Evoker between the two of them.

They could keep going, yes, but the odds were stacked so highly against them that there was only one possible outcome.

"...Oh God, what the hell."

—And then, suddenly, someone who wasn't supposed to be there appeared.

At the far end of the thoroughfare stood Kei Kamiya, panting heavily and beholding the scene before him with a wide-mouthed, stupefied expression. In his right hand he held an evoker—the very one that had been knocked out of Naomi's grasp.

Her train of thought crashed and burned. She stared at the transfer student, hoping against all hope that she could somehow just will him away, as if he was just some image conjured up by her mind. But she couldn't, and he wasn't.

"Kamiya..." Finally, Naomi gathered herself enough to say, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING HERE?!"

He winced and gave her a somewhat sheepish look, but didn't have time to respond before the Shadow fully turned to face him.

 **"KEI,"** it rumbled.

It struck a chord in him, seeing as he recoiled like he'd just been slapped. Regardless, Kamiya stood his ground and evenly met the Shadow's gaze.

"Me," he replied with a cheeky grin. He chuckled and began to exaggerate his Kansai accent, really rolling the hell out of his 'r's. "You are one persistent sonuva bee sting, you know that? Broke my arm, chased me halfway across Japan, and to top it off, you just dragged me into the first circle of hell, or whatever, and are now terrorizing my classmates." Kamiya paused to heave a dramatic sigh and ran his hand through his hair. "Why do you always keep sticking your big ugly mug into my life? Come on, dude, don't cha have any hobbies?"

Despite his nonchalant act, his hand, his shoulders, his entire body fiercely trembled with barely concealed fear. It was a wonder he hadn't lost grip of the Evoker in his hand. But Kamiya squashed down that fear and raised the Evoker—and pointed it towards the Shadow.

Belatedly, Naomi realized that he was about to get himself killed. "Kamiya, that's not—!"

He had already pulled the trigger by the time the first syllable came out of her mouth.

The pitiful 'click!' the Evoker produced resonated far louder than any gunshot possibly could have.

Slowly, with an almost unfitting calm, Kamiya turned the object in his hand and really examined it, thoroughly taking in every detail of its form. He then raised his head and looked past the Shadow, directly at her, and his gray eyes slowly began to widen in panic. He didn't even need to open his mouth to communicate the question in his mind; "Why did Kiyomi give you fake guns?!"

She wanted to tell him to turn right back around and get out of there. She wanted to call him a fucking imbecile for coming back in the first place. Intellectually, she knew she should have summoned Jeanne to strike during the distraction. But before she could do anything for him, the Shadow had already made its move.

A single green dreadlock darted out and bound Kamiya's legs together, lifting him high up into the air, before tossing him off into the distance.

* * *

/When he came to, he stood amidst a barren gray wasteland, littered with corpses and discarded weapons, stretching out as far as the eye could see.

He sigh and stumbled forward, using a long, notched sword as a crutch. The battle was long over by now, but whether the Toyotomi or Tokugawa forces had won wasn't a concern.../

* * *

Kei felt and perceived nothing. For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought he was dead.

His mortality abruptly returned in the form of an overwhelming wave of pain, as if countless spikes were piercing into every inch of him, inpairing his ability to be cognizant of anything but it.

Somewhere in the distance, someone called out something, but he wasn't able to process what had just been said. His bleary eyes saw identified movement, but he couldn't really make sense of it either. Some vague, dark figure lazily swung its arm, knocking a smaller figure onto the ground.

He didn't know when or how, but at some point, Kei had managed to bring himself onto his feet. He couldn't help but be impressed that, despite the punishment he'd taken, and on top of the atrophy of a month spent in a hospital, his legs were still able to support him.

 _'What the hell am I doing…?'_

The pain and nausea receded to the back of his mind. They didn't disappear, not quite, but rather, became distant—Someone else's pain, stemming from someone else's broken body. His blurry vision slowly cleared, and he was able to identify the sights before him.

The Shadow strode slowly towards Shiranui, who had fallen onto her knees. The silver, statue-like being from before appeared once more, imposing herself between Shiranui and the Shadow, but she evaporated into smoke when the monster's tendrils speared through her.

"H-hey… Hey…!" he cried out with a painfully hoarse voice.

 _'Why am I still here?'_

Once again, all eyes turned towards him. **"STILL STANDING?"** the Shadow rumbled, sounding somewhat surprised as it curiously examined him.

 _'I don't even know these people…'_

"I-I'm… I'm the one you want, right? T-then… C'mon!"

 _'...So why am I risking my life for them?!'_

He stook a single step towards the enemy, with his body numb and trembling as he shouted, "Come and get me!"

The Shadow obliged, completely ignoring Feng and Shiranui in favor of going for him. It shot forward faster than he could think, its hand outstretched towards him—

—And at that moment, time seemed to stop.

A blue butterfly appeared before him. He knew it didn't speak, but he could still hear the words in his mind.

 _We meet again, Kei Kamiya._

 _You seem to be in a rough spot. Helpless and broken before an unbeatable foe…_

And yet you're still standing. Against all odds, you're still fighting. I have to admit, that is admirable.

But I'm afraid that simple bravado isn't enough. Your potential still hasn't been reached. You stand at the precipice of fate, but can't take the leap.

The butterfly fluttered closer, eventually landing at the bridge of his nose, completely obscuring his view of everything but it.

 _So I'll offer you something; I'll give you that one last push you need. But of course, I'll want something in return._

 _You may call this a contract, if you will._

It's tone was somewhat humorous, as if it were sharing some sort of joke with him.

 _'What do you want from me?'_ he tried to say, though his lips didn't manage to move. Regardless, it still heard him.

 _In return, I ask for one thing, and one thing only—That you assume responsibility for all the decisions you make._

 _Will you abide by these terms, Kei Kamiya?_

Before he could respond, the butterfly lifted off his nose and flew off without another word.

It's often said that when a person is about to die, their brain subconsciously attempts to soothe them by showing them visions of comforting events throughout their lives. Birthday parties, first kisses, good times spent with friends and family—the mind latched on to any happy memory.

What Kei Kamiya saw at that moment barely fit that description.

Nineteen silhouettes circling him. A wasteland littered with weapons as far as the eye could see. The full moon, with a gigantic black being hovering before it. A young man in chains, nude and malnourished, yet giving him a knowing smile.

And he saw a card sitting upon a table, with the image of a woman surrounded by an angel, a bull, an eagle, and a lion, with the roman numeral twenty-one below her. The image of the card transformed into that of a woman holding a trumpet with the numeral twenty below her, and then into the face of the sun, with the numeral nineteen. This went on, quicker with each subsequent card until it reached the final one—But its image was pixelated and unclear. Only the number zero at its bottom was visible.

And the world changed.

* * *

When he came to, Kei stood in the middle of a familiar gray wasteland. Standing before him with his arms folded was the swordsman. Before him waited the swordsman, with his arms folded.

He didn't waste any time with the theatrics. He just nodded and greeted Kei with a simple **"Yo."**

"...Hey," Kei responded after a moment's hesitation.

The swordsman stood there silently, staring at him for many long minutes before finally speaking up again. **"You're not the type to stand up and fight—We've already established that. But you just keep on standing anyways. You've chosen to keep on fighting, even when you can't win. Why is that?"**

Kei didn't really have an answer for that. So, he just shrugged and put on a weak grin as he thought of something cool to say. He came up with something he vaguely remembered hearing on tv once; "Don't cha know? Scars on the back are a swordsman's—Ugh!"

The swordsman kicked his legs out from under him, knocking Kei on his ass halfway through his sentence.

 **"Oh, just sit your ass down and quit trying to act like you're cool,"** he groaned, before crouching down next to Kei and taking on a more somber tone. **"You've met with this enemy before. Do you remember that?"**

Kei nodded. He remembered a cold, moonless night, surrounded by dark trees. "Back in Toyono…"

A distant voice had called out to him. _'I am thou,'_ it had whispered, _'thou art I.'_

"You… You offered me your power back then." The power to protect, to save, to fight.

 **"And you were true to your instincts then—You chose to flee."** His voice was completely neutral; he did not judge nor offer an opinion, simply stating the facts.

Regardless, Kei still flinched and glanced away, furrowing his brow with shame. "I… I was scared," he said weakly, but it sounded a pathetic excuse even to himself.

Regardless, the swordsman nodded. **"And you're not scared now?"**

Kei scoffed at that. "What, 're you kidding me? Of course I'm scared!" He raised his hand in front of him, both to show and examine how badly it shook, how his heart pounded so fiercely that he felt it might stop outright at any given moment. "I'm scared outta my damn mind... I could die here… But I…"

 **"Then, what changed? Why do you choose now to fight?"**

In his mind's eye, Kei saw a young girl looking back at him with bright amber eyes, with a grin spreading across her lips. He felt an arm slung across his shoulder as a masculine voice shared some bawdy joke. He felt warm fingers, just a tad too delicate, too frail, running across his hair.

"I don't know." His voice was barely higher than a whisper as he spoke again. "Maybe I'm just trying to make up for last time… Maybe I just went crazy… I dunno why, but… I feel like if I turn away from this, I'll lose something, and never get it back."

The swordsman was silent for a long time following that, as he thoroughly pondered Kei's statement. After a few minutes, he finally let out a quiet chuckle. **"So you decided to take on a giant monster just 'cause your gut told you to? That's dumb as hell."**

Kei shrugged. "Maybe."

 **"Still… that's a pretty hypocritical thing for me to say. I've done dumber things than this for flimsier reasons."** The swordsman's voice sounded almost wistful as he looked past Kei, and towards something far off into the distance, something only he could see. He shook his head and stood back up after a few moments. **"Well, I guess dumbasses like you and me should travel in packs,"** he said, extending a hand down towards Kei.

Kei hesitated, quirking an eyebrow before finally grabbing on and allowing himself to be helped up. The swordsman then briefly paused before saying, **"But… you do understand what you're getting into, right? Are you sure you're prepared to accept the terms of this contract?"**

Kei nodded without hesitation. "Yeah… this is something I have to do."  
 **  
"Then say the words."** The swordsman turned the sword in his hand and offered it to Kei, grip-first. **"Swear it, here and now."**

Slowly, he accepted the sword, getting accustomed to its weight, to the feeling of its smooth texture under his fingers. "I swear—I will take responsibility for the consequences of my actions."

The swordsman nodded back. **"If this is the path you choose to walk, then I'll stand by your side, and give you my strength."**

He then yanked the sword back, and walked away. **"Now get off my lawn; you're missing out on all the fun."**

"Wha...? H-hey, hold on!" The swordsman paused, inclining his head just enough to see him in his peripheral vision. "I… Just who are you, anyway?" Kei asked.

The swordsman turned fully, and Kei couldn't help but freeze in reaction to what he saw. The one who stood before him was no longer a vague blur of gray—He was now a scrawny teenager with black hair, whose left arm was in a cast, whose eyes glowed like gold.

At the horizon, scattered rays of sunlight broke through the overcast sky. In the distance, the mountains finally became truly visible instead of being vague silhouettes. Slowly, colors began to bloom upon the gray wasteland.

 **"I am you,"** the other Kei said, as he stood backlit by the morning sun, **"just as you are me."**

The dawn's light intensified, forcing him to shut his eyes.

* * *

/"My, my…" The monk let out a merry, unconcerned laugh as he leant closer, examining his bound form. "What a wild and inelegant beast you are."

He didn't dignify that with a proper response, instead choosing to bite at an errant finger and spat at him once he was out of reach. But his body was simply too exhausted to move any further. With a frustrated snarl, he slumped back against the boulder.

The monk just laughed even harder at that, bringing both hands to his belly as he doubled over. "Oh, you can growl and gnash your teeth at me all you want, son, but you won't change my mind!"

"So what?" he finally said. And _god_ , was his voice hoarse. For some reason, that thought made him feel pretty self-conscious. Just how long had it been since he had last spoken, or bathed, or even set foot in civilization? "You just gonna talk me to death?"

The damned monk laughed once more. Then, the smile faded from his face as he stepped closer and.../

* * *

"I am…"

 _This contract is sealed._

When his eyes opened once more, Kei found himself back in the distorted city. His hand clenched around the gun, gripping it desperately as if it were a lifeline. But he wasn't really sure why. After all, he'd just seen moments ago that it was just a fake, nothing more than a glorified toy.

But somehow, he just knew that this was the greatest weapon he could ever possess.

The butterfly fluttered back into his vision and whispered once more,

 _Now then, just follow my lead, Kei Kamiya._

Slowly, Kei raised the gun—Not at the enemy charging towards him, but at his own head, just as Shiranui had done.

 _Repeat after me;_

"Per…"

* * *

/"...But you are of my blood. One day, you will grow stronger than I... perhaps I should.../

* * *

The Shadow approached him quickly, it's single eye focused on him and him alone. The sound of his heartbeat deafened and numbed him to all other sensation as he muttered the next syllable.

"So..."

* * *

/...He stood there alone, with the sun at his back, and steel in his hand.../

* * *

It was so close now, Kei was just within its hand's grasp. All it would take now was a single motion, a simple squeeze from those massive fingers to end him. But he didn't hesitate for even an instant.

He squeezed the trigger, and a barrier which he did not know existed was shattered, unleashing a mighty torrent.

* * *

/—Invincible under the Heavens./

* * *

The Shadow was blown away as something exploded from within Kei. A loud, whooshing sound rang out as the air was parted, and in the blink of an eye, several deep gashes appeared across the Shadow's body. The enemy crashed at the other end of the intersection, whilst a figure landed in a crouch next to Kei.

He was easily twice the size of Kei, and wore a tattered red haori, which left his dark-gray chest exposed, and a pair of brown hakama around his legs. His hands and feet were covered by black vambraces and black boots, both armored with small lamellar plate, and held in place by thick bandages around his wrists and ankles. Over his shoulder he carried a thick, serrated ōdachi, almost as large as Kei was tall. A silvery mask, similar to what a sentai hero would wear, hid his face, and his shaggy gray hair was tied back into a loose tail.

He felt a wide, almost painful grin spreading across his face, but he wasn't really sure why he was smiling in the first place. Then, without input, a whisper came from his lips—

"—I am thou."

 **And thou art I,**

The swordsman responded, rising to his feet.

 **This flesh yields not to steel, and this heart shies not from conflict**

 **I am Shinmen Takezō**

 **And with the Sun at my back, and Steel in my hand—**

 **"—I've come to battle,"** both he and Kei intoned.

* * *

 _Persona Compendium:_

Rama

VII—Chariot

 _The seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, and protagonist of the epic poem, the Ramayana. In order to save humanity from the invincible rakshasa Ravana, Vishnu chose to be incarnated as the mortal prince of the kingdom of Kosala. By the time he reached adolescence, he was widely renowned as the perfect embodiment of man, thanks to his earnest and virtuous personality. After defeating Ravana, he married Sita, an avatar of Lakshmi, and the perfect embodiment of womanhood._

* * *

Shinmen Takezō

0

 _A rōnin who began roaming Japan during the dying days of the Sengoku Jidai, when at age thirteen, he challenged and killed the samurai Arima Kihei in a duel. He went on to participate in the Battle of Sekigahara, the final battle of the Sengoku period, fighting for the losing side of Toyotomi Hideyori and the clans of Western Japan. Though he managed to survive the battle, his whereabouts after his desertion are unknown, as the youth known as Shinmen Takezō seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth._

* * *

Well, to be perfectly honest, I can't say I'm one-hundred percent satisfied with this chapter. I feel like I could have extended Naomi and Shaojie's fight just a bit, elaborated on a few concepts, and overall just done better, though I'm not really sure where. But, this chapter's been in the oven for too long, and if isn't already perfect, then it probably won't ever be.

At any rate, I do sincerely hope I was successful at making Kei's awakening the hypest shit ever.

As always, please share your thoughts on this chapter, or hell, any of 'em really. Constructive criticism is my lifeblood.

The next update's going to be a bit… unorthodox, to put it simply. I hate to be all vague and _~Mystewious~,_ but this is all I'll say for now; it's not non-canon, and it ends in tears.

See you Friday.


End file.
